Concrete Road
by Mat Glue
Summary: “Is it the headache?” Rogue nodded. “Does it ever leave?” She shook her head and admitted later on that her following choices might not have been the right ones. ROMY!AUangst
1. Filled head

_BAD OLD SUMMARY: After Apocalypse thing, Rogue's powers are slipping ever more from her control, and she, from her own mind. Over all, it seems that Rogue would do "anything" for it to "stop". loads of Remy in process  
_

* * *

Rogue looked up. The ceiling was white, and Rogue's green eyes bore into it's surface, her smooth pale forehead slightly strained from the effort of frowning. Trying to ignore the energetic freshman that stood next her bed was Mission Impossible, even for the Rogue. For Kitty, that evening, was rambling about what she could wear for her date with Lance.

Rogue slowly shifted her gaze away from the imperturbable ceiling and towards her friend Kitty, who, at that moment, was staring at her reflection, scrutinising her pink strap top, and trying to decide if it looked better than her green one.

Seeing that Kitty was in a fix, and that she might be able to get the freshman to leave sooner, Rogue tried to give her humble advice. "Don't worry, what ever ya wear, he'll have his tongue tied up in knots by looking at ya," said Rogue, praying that Kitty would take the hint. Of course, she could have said this just to please Kitty –which was secretly the case- but she actually did it to satisfy the Lance psyche that was stuck her head. He was presently drooling, and it was freaking her out.

"This is, like, special, I 'really' want it , like, to work," said Kitty taking her pink top off for a blue one with fluffs at the end of the sleeves. Rogue thought that it looked repulsing.

"Not that one..." Rogue said with distaste, or was it Kitty's psyche that had just whined?

"When did you come up with any taste?" Kitty took off the blue one anyway and tried a black one. "This one is, like, too morbid, I don't know even why I bought it!" It was flung in the corner of the room.

"Ah don't mind it," Rogue said getting up and rescuing it from its corner. She lifted it up. It had long sleeves and a deep collar. Right, maybe a little too deep for wearing at the institute. She was sure they had some kind of restrictions concerning clothing.

"Have it," Kitty offered. She had now a white tunic on. "This will be, like, just fine. Now, what about the pants..." She looked through a couple of draws before coming up with some dark blue ones. "Perfect... No..."

Rogue's head was swarming with the names of clothes, colours, shapes and sizes that Kitty had tried on. Worse, the absorbed Psyche Kitty in her head was raving mad, trying to push through the mass of other psyches to be able to help her solid counterpart, who was now giving the last touches to her make-up. Rogue jumped into her jogging trousers, put sweatshirt on and tied her sneakers up.

"Ah'm going jogging," she announced, without giving Kitty another glance. She walked down to the front of the Mansion. A couple students scurried out of her way, Rogue was now wearing a deep scowl, trying to put her screeching Kitty away in the back of her mind.

Finally outside and in the open fresh air, Rogue did some stretching, warming up, hands over her head, before jogging away in the Mansion's grounds. Kitty Psyche had calmed down as she got bored with Rogue's new activity, only to be replaced by Logan barking orders and threats to continue running until she dropped. Nothing out of the ordinary.

As it got dark, sun disappearing behind the horizon, the lamps set up on Grounds were lit so that Rogue could easily find her way and prevent any tripping, falling, or bumping into trees and bushes. She breathed heavely, letting the sent of the day's flowers wash over, and the new fresh air fill her lungs. It was a perfect –from a scenic point of view- evening.

She stopped next to the lake, did some more stretching, let herself slide down onto the grass and then proceeded to watch the shimmering gold reflections that poured on the dark water from the side lamps that were set up at regular intervals.

"That's all?" Logan asked from inside her head. "Don't do enough exercise, surprised ya can still move yar butt from your room, Kid. Ya just stay in there all day..." mumbled Logan to himself and then retreated.

And then there was silence. Rogue sighted and lied down. It felt good. No Kitty whining, no Lance drooling, no Logan barking, no Jean teddy bear thoughts, no Scott moral... She wasn't even counting the dozen other voices that would spontaneously spoke. Ah, and the professor... Rogue was glad he kept quite, most of the time.

The past three weeks, the voices in her head had become clearer, sharper, and at those times, Rogue didn't know who she was anymore. Someone would call out for Jean, and Rogue would turn around. She would sit down in the school's cafeteria with her tray and find it full of vegetarian stuff. And then it struck her, she could hardly remember her "own" childhood.

Rogue looked blankly out. She shivered and not because of the cold.

"Chère should do like Remy," Gambit broke the silence. "Talk in the third person before he forget' his own name." Was that meant to be sarcastic? Maybe it wasn't.

Rogue snarled. She didn't need to do that so she would be able to remember her OWN name. "Ah still know it's..." She stopped, panic slightly raising. She couldn't remember her name, her real name, who she was, is. No, she was Rogue now, she wasn't one person, she was a couple at the same time, she was like a bottle, just a recipient for other people to fill up.

"Rogue, this will leave when your powers will be fully developed. You will be able to separate the two and see clearly. Patience is all you need," said the professor's voice soothingly.

Rogue hissed. Even for Apocalypse, she'd been a bottle from which he'd "drank". Since that frightful day, Rogue had been empty, the voices had left, it had been a miracle, a very good vacation. But they slowly crept back, louder than ever. Rogue wondered if, while the voices had been gone, her powers had been dampened. She still hadn't dared try out. If they had been dampened, she would hug Logan, she decided, for she had heard, just before she'd slipped into unconsciousness by Apocalypse's touch.

Maybe she could find out if she just "accidentally" grazed Kitty's skin... It wouldn't do much harm.

"Sheila, just get over it!" St John Psyche said.

"No!" Kitty screeched! "Rogue, don't! If 'we' are back, so are your powers!"

"Don't worry chère, when Remy got his po'ers, he' just blow up everything he touch." His voice seemed melancholic, sad, something Rogue had never heard in him. Gambit was the rare psyches, including Magneto's Xavier's and Logan's psyches, of which Rogue could not get access their memories. They knew how to hide them. As for Logan Logan, well, he couldn't even remember his own past.

"But how did ya manage to control them?" she asked.

"With time, chère."

The Logan in Rogue's head growled something that sounded like "Liar."

Remy did not answer, or try to defend his word deciding to disappear in the jumble of psyches that was Rogue's brain.

"Cheer up!" Pyro said. "Don't go all flimsy on us!"

"Ice cream cheers me up," Kurt added.

Rogue, still lying down on the grass, looked up into the dark sky, trying to ignore the cacophony echoing in her head. She pressed her index fingers each side of her head, massaging against the headache that would soon appear. They started to get louder, more psyches peeping up, some starting to argue... Oh, how she would do anything to be normal, to not have them in her head, to be able to touch...

But don't we all know better than to not wish for something we might regret, using the term "anything".

* * *

Well, what do you think? Getting pretty crowded in Rogue's head, ain't it? Review, and if anyone has any special request/ idea concerning your favourite characters (Rogue and Gambit, of course!) and others, type in and I might mix it up with the rest. Because like, when I read something, it's like: "oh! If only..." Say it out loud and I'll see to it! Of course, the chapter is a bit short... But don't worry, they'll get longer, this like a prologue...

**Update :** Revised this chapter, tried to sort out Grammar, spelling Mistakes. And with a little luck, you might think that my writing has improved since the last time you crossed this particular chapter.


	2. Morning conversations with one's self

Rogue was standing still, in the shadow of the corner. However, she felt cold tremors run across her back. Something was approaching, something deadly, and Rogue couldn't move. Her legs were of stone, even if she'd wanted to, she wouldn't have been able to take a step.  
  
"Ya should have kept out of this, chere."  
  
A loud clunk-clunk could be heard approaching.  
  
"Who can trust a thief?"   
  
***  
  
-Earlier that day.-  
  
Rogue jumped back, letting the book fall. She panted, panicked, and so afraid. Where was she?  
  
***  
  
Kitty huffed and puffed, jogging down the pavement. She was late for school. How it had come to this, she had no idea. When she'd woken up, Rogue, like, had been already gone. That Goth was sometimes exasperating! Why she had, like, left without waking up her roommate was unbelievable, she always did it for Rogue!   
  
Kitty looked down at the watch at her wrist, it was Spike's, she hadn't found hers. She was three quarters of an hour late. God dammit!  
  
She hadn't had time to put her make-up on, she was wearing blue skirt with a red jumper! Like, yuck!!! Only Kurt managed to doe that! And why she had put flip-flops on when she had to run, she had NO idea. She was sweating with the effort, trying to keep her quick pace. She could only imagine the shade of red her face was. Urgh!  
  
After ten minutes of walking very fast, Kitty finally got to school. The first hour had just finished with the bell ringing. She passed some of her old friends, who just sneered at the poor Kitty. They weren't exactly mutant lovers. Her throat swelled with emotions. They'd been Kitty's BEST friends, and that dreadful morning, when she'd finally been recognised like a mutant, they'd sniffed and turned their backs on her.   
  
She rushed to her locker to dump her books in, only to find it already full. "That's like, totally weird."  
  
She dropped her bag at her feet and slowly took a schoolbook out from the locker, opening it up to look at the back of the cover for a name.   
  
Kitty gasped, her name was on it. It was impossible, she'd checked her bag on her way to school, and this book was inside it. She was sure!  
  
She crouched down over her bag and opened it up to find the same book there. Maybe she was dreaming, and this was the kind of nightmare of the worst morning ever, everything seemed to have gone wrong. She tentatively took it out, half-afraid to discover what name was on the back. She wasn't too sure why either.  
  
She cried out. It was Rogue's. Rogue's. Rogue... Rogue...  
  
***  
  
Rogue was at school, in front of Kitty's locker. How she'd got there, she had no idea. The last thing she remembered was getting annoyed in her room with Jean psyche. And now... Something about. Oh no. She hope she hadn't...  
  
"Rogue," it was psyche Kitty. "Don't worry. I, like, took care of you. Like, kind of. But the clothes, I must say, wasn't my best choice."  
  
"What you're talking about!" Jubilee protested. "They look fine!"  
  
"You were too tired, you had a headache all night." That was Jean. "The Professor and I managed to convince you to just, 'lay back.'"  
  
"You are a still a bit disoriented," the Professor explained. "You relayed on one of your trusting psyches to replace you while you had some rest."  
  
"Kitty!" Rogue exclaimed. "Trusting!"   
  
The usual Goth that was Rogue was dressed in a SKIRT and a RED top!  
  
Rogue had listened carefully to the professor, back at the institute. It had seemed perfect: Rogue was meant to go into a half sleep, but still be able to stay alert with the help of a psyche. However, there was always a catch, here no different.   
  
Rogue slammed Kitty's locker shut and went to find her own. This was just great: she was now missing some memories, had acted like Kitty, more time than it was healthy, and was still a freak among freaks. At least she had a pair of urgency gloves in her bag. She took them out and quickly slipped them on. "At least they're black." Black like my mood, she added to herself. Rogue made a mental note to NOT use Kitty in any case if she needed to 'lay back' again.   
  
'Rest indeed', thought Rogue. She was more alert than when she'd woken up, sure. Her headache was gone, but she knew it was only a matter of time before it would build up again. Like the previous night.  
  
School was no use now. Not in the mood anymore, Rogue shouldered her bag and decided to have a day off. No way she would be walking around looking like this!  
  
'They' talked all night. No, it hadn't been talking. The psyches had been 'dreaming". It was worse than talking: it would go on and on, endless changing. It came in pictures, words, sounds... One time she would be playing with a little girl, the other stuck in endless sewers, running. Scott giving roses, or eating burgers, in some cases, flies. Or going skiing, burning forests. Rogue had tossed and turned all night, moaned in anguish, chuckled at some picture, talked in her sleep to someone; always with the same piercing headache.   
  
"Yo, where're we going?" asked Toad.  
  
"Don't know, anywhere," Rogue replied walking back outside.  
  
"I'm hungry!" Fred complained.  
  
"You're always hungry," Jean sniffed.  
  
"Ah AM hungry,' Rogue defended her old Brotherhood 'friend'. "Don't think AH had breakfast."   
  
"Sorry Rogue, 'we', like, didn't have time."  
  
"Rogue, you really shouldn't miss class." That was Scott. Rogue ignored him. She was quite surprised that none of the adults had opposed to her plans. It was 'her' life after all.  
  
"What will it be then?" Rogue asked.  
  
"Chinese."  
  
"Français, chere"  
  
"Vegetarian."  
  
"Steak."  
  
"Steak sounds good."  
  
"Raw steak."  
  
"Man! We no animal!"  
  
"Ok! Ok!" Rogue actually shouted aloud. "Ah'll just choose whatever Ah like!"  
  
"What would you like to eat?" the little Jamie asked.  
  
"Ah... whatever w' cross first." Rogue groaned. Did she know what she wanted? Treating her psyches like humans was in a way adapting to a community which depended on her. What if they refused something she did? What if they got angry? Rogue shuddered and moved on.   
  
Something more worrying: the Kitty episode thing. Rogue winced, looking down at her clothes and tried to pretend she was garbed in black. But whatever she did to convince herself, it wouldn't help the others. It wouldn't keep them away far enough to not get hurt.   
  
"There, just across from the bank."  
  
Rogue looked about and spotted the small snack bar. Making sure there were no cars, she crossed the street and entered the small place.  
  
There was the tinting of a bell when she opened the door; the few people there turned around to glance at the newcomer, and then went back to their meal.   
  
Rogue sat down at a table in the farthest corner and waited for someone to come and take her order.   
  
She had no idea what would fall open her, a couple of minutes later in her near future.   
  
She opened the menu that had been left on the table. Her psyches started to get exited.  
  
"Pork chops!"  
  
"No! Corn salad."  
  
"Kitty, I'm not going to become vegetarian," Rogue told her briskly.   
  
"But, it's killing living beings!"  
  
"Ok, no meat after all, just for this time." Some moans and groans followed Rogue's decision.   
  
"No meat? You're kidding, Kid. You're skinny as it is!"  
  
"Meat, Raw bleeding meat."  
  
"Keep your thoughts to yourself, Victor. Please." That was Ororo.   
  
"What's there to drink?" little Jamie asked.  
  
"Mhh... Beer," Rogue thought to herself.  
  
"No way Kid, can't let ya do this. Ya're underage... Even thought I would like some."   
  
"No Orange juice?"  
  
"They won't let you," Scott added.  
  
"Remy come here before. Dey'll serve ya any'ing."  
  
"Why come here? There's nothing special about this place," Jean remarked.  
  
"She 'is' underage."  
  
"Well, maybe a sip wouldn't hurt ya." Rogue smirked. Logan couldn't resist the pull of alcohol.   
  
"Logan!?!"  
  
"Let chere liv' a bit."  
  
"Really, the curtains are all dirty, they have stains..." Someone shut up Jean...  
  
"The chairs aren't even comfortable." ...and her highness Amara.  
  
"Remy finds it has a good view."  
  
Rogue glanced out of the large windows, between the "dirty" curtains.  
  
"The bank?" Rogue questioned. He didn't answer.  
  
"Whatever, Stripes. Just grab a beer," Logan finally decided.   
  
"Rogue," Oh oh... The Professor. "I don't think it would be wise to drink alcohol."   
  
"You are still growing. And as a mutant, it could affect your system more ways than one." Hank.  
  
Rogue sighed, it seemed that drinking beer was far worse than skipping school.   
  
"Yes...." Poor Logan. "They're right, Stripes."  
  
And it came.  
  
The ground trembled with the explosion from across the street, from the bank.  
  
All the heads from inside the restaurant wiped around to look outside.   
  
A cloud of dust was hiding the bank entrance.   
  
"Ah hope this has nothing to do with ya, Remy," Rogue said dryly.   
  
"Nah, Remy was meant t' be much more discreet."  
  
"That filthy thief!" Sabertooth growled.  
  
"Get him, Stripes!"  
  
"Non! Ya can't do that, chere!"  
  
"Watch me," Rogue said as she sprung out of her chair, running out of the restaurant.   
  
***  
  
You might have guessed, I love Kitty. She's fun to play with! Tell me if you haven't understood when Rogue was walking around, thinking she was Kitty. I wrote 3 kinds of this second chapter. The first two very very dark. Well, I thought I should wait for angst.   
  
The real Remy will be coming up next (yes, in his "body").   
  
Of course, thanks for the reviews. I will try to add a Remy in towl (somewhere). Rogue will be have another downfall with her next surge of powers, because of her psyches... I've added the space out, her going around as Kitty, but there is no one about for the moment. Oh, and if possible, Rogue is going to become crazy as ever. But of course, in my world, there is nearly only happy endings. (nearly, because I just don't know how this going to end yet)  
  
Thanks again! 


	3. In the presence of Death

"Watch me," Rogue said as she sprung out of her chair, running out of the restaurant.

Once she had passed the bar's door, dust and fumes assaulted her senses. She felt her eyes prick and water unmercifully. She held her hand in front of her mouth and nose, feeling the fowl stuff enter her lungs, and willing her to cough.

She forced her green eyes open, and advanced, retaining her breath a little. There were more explosions, louder, more powerful with more surges of dust. The ground under her feet shuddered with its force. It did nothing to discourage her.

"Dis not be normal. Somethin' has gon' wrong. Ya should keep out of dis."

Rogue didn't listen. There were a couple of cars, abandoned on the road, doors wide open, deserted by their owners who'd run away in fright. She passed them, glancing inside to make sure they were empty, and then made her way towards the entrance of the bank, or what was left of the entrance. At it's place was a gaping hole, it's corners charred black.

"Dis be Remy, sure enough. But, dis isn't normal. Be careful chere."

"Aren't you frightened that mein sister catches you?"

"Nah, none can catch Remy. He be the best."

"Stripes is going to scorch your ego, gumbo," Logan chuckled. "Now, just keep to the corners and shadows. Remember my training."

Rogue tried to glance inside, but the view was half hidden by the dust hanging in the air. She took a tempting step inside, before sprinting across the hall to the side of the next door. She took another breath, then held it. She peeked threw the doorway. It seemed empty.

"Wait..."

There was yet another explosion accompanied by another wave of dust. The lamps rattled against the walls, bits of plaster fell from the ceiling.

"Leave, chere. Remy not sure what is happening..."

"Don't listen to him!"

"What are 'ya' doing here anyway?" Rogue asked.

"Business. But wasn't meant to be dis way. Remy must be in deep trouble..."

"Ah should help ya."

"Leave me to mes problems, chere. Y' got enough."

"Right with gumbo, for once. He's a thief, Kid. Good if he's in trouble!"

"No..." Rogue mumbled.

"Chere, it's no good."

"No, I'm an X-man! I must help!" Rogue cried out. She winced imagining Scott puffing up his torso in pride. However, for once, he wasn't keeping to his 'usual' prep talk.

"Rogue, I order you to leave. It's too dangerous. Go back to institute and tell the professor and 'I'..." Rogue could feel the awkwardness as he spoke of himself. "...what's happening."

The walls trembled once again. Rogue knew it was a bit stupid. She should have left to get back-up but she wanted to prove to the others, and to herself, that she wasn't weak, that she was capable to go back on mission.

Therefore, she advanced, hidden behind the empty counters, her heart beating loudly. Most of her psyches protested, but she tried to ignore them as best she could.

"Ya don't know what ya're getting in, chere..."

"Get back now!"

"Rogue, I don't want to get in any trouble..."

"What you're talking about, it'll be fun!"

Rogue arrived at the foot of a stairway, refined in marble with a plated gold banister: several steps were missing. She looked up, the ceiling was blackened, but there were no more tremors than ran along it. Each of her steps was echoing too loudly to Rogue's ears. She took another breath.

"Smells trap."

Rogue dashed up the stairway, but at that precise moment, the ground decided to shake. Rogue was destabilised but managed to keep her ground and not fall down. She sighed in relief and started to continue her way up when an almighty crack was heard. 

She looked just in time to see the whole ceiling crumbling, the chandelier hooked up there coming down first.

"Shit!"

Rogue lifted her arms and closed her eyes in pure reflex, waiting for the pain that was sure to follow. Instead, a weird sensation travelled threw her body, like if she'd plunged in water and then regained the surface with a gulp of air. She could hear the first bits crashing against the stairs and lower down.

Her arms were placed over her head, and she waited...

And waited. The noise was slowly deafened and Rogue opened an eye from inside the confines of her arms.

The entire rumble was now around her, but she was "whole"...

"It worked," breathed Kitty. 

Rogue let her arms drop to her sides, a little confused. "Ah'm intact," she said, trying to convince herself of her lucky fate. "Ah'm alive."

"Yep Yep Yep! Thanks who? So? Thanks who?" Kitty cheered happily. Rogue could imagine the freshman performing a little victory dance.

"Ah phased..." Rogue could hardly believe.

"I phased you, you mean! I did it! Geez, like, where's all the gratitude coming from?" Kitty rambled on.

"Haven't got time!" 

Rogue rushed up the last steps, jumping over the debris, trying to understand exactly what had happened. Could she control a psyche's power? She knew a couple that could be very useful.

But something even more weird than usual daily mutation happened, interrupting Rogue's thoughts. She shivered uncontrollably, like if she'd fallen into freezing water. For just a second, Rogue thought she'd phased again, but is was something much more unpleasant. Even Kitty had quietened down.

"Turn back! Dis ain't no good news! Run!" Remy spoke first.

"What is it?" A dreadful fascination made Rogue continue onwards, as if a black string was pulling at her heat, like a fish on the hook. However, instead of trashing about, she stayed calm and approached carefully.

"What you're doing!"

"I'm scared," Jamie's voice trembled.

"Rogue, get back straight away! It's an order!"

"I don't see anything good coming."

"Mh... I've already felt this somewhere, very long ago... It couldn't be."

"Charles, I hope you're not talking about..."

"I'm not sure, Eric."

"Just shut up! Will ya?" Rogue scolded them.

"This is outrageous!" Amara complained. "I've never been spoken to like this..."

"Shut! Keep the volume down, dey'll hear us," Remy unexpectedly came to Rogue's defence.

"Hear? Rogue's not talking... There's a telepath about?"

The psyches became silent, something that Rogue hadn't experienced for a while. The faint headache that had started to form disappeared instantly. Now, if only she could find Gambit and find out what the hell was happening...

She didn't need to, for the answer came to her, literally.

Rogue stood still in the shadow of the corner. However, cold tremors ran across her back. Something was approaching, something deadly, and Rogue found that she couldn't move. Her legs were of stone, even if she'd wanted to she wouldn't have been able to run. For she anticipated with a dangerous thrill what was coming towards her.

"Ya should have kept out of this, chere."

A loud clunk-clunk could be heard approaching.

"Who can trust a thief?"

A dark figured turned the corner, cloaked in black with a large white staff in hand, the end falling to the ground with each step. It stopped in its tracks, a final clunk echoing across the room.

Rogue squirmed: all her senses were screaming to move...

It turned it's head, taking Rogue's breath away. From inside the folds of the hood, Death's face looked out. The pale skin clinging to it's skull, rotting gashes were where the eyes should have been... It advanced, no apparent need of it's staff which it'd been using earlier as a walking stick.

Cold seemed to grip at Rogue's throat, trying to strangle her, make her take her last breath. It was working. She became weak in the knees, her eyesight blurring, her skin crawling... Meanwhile her psyches became frantic, yelling, but Rogue was deaf to them.

Before any psyche could do more, Death started to back away, his grip loosening on Rogue's senses. Her eyesight became neat, her arms less heavy...

"Here comes the chopper,' it hissed, hitting the ground with it's staff as if it was the hammer of doom.

"To chop off your head..." it finished before disappearing into shadow.

Rogue fell to her knees, gasping for air, shaking uncontrollably. It was too cold... Warmth and sense slowly came back to her body.

"Are you all right?" little Jimmy squeaked nervously.

"Yes. Yes, much better," Rogue answered breathlessly.

"Where's gumbo meant to be?"

Rogue dragged herself up into a standing position and walked deeper into the bank, her hand pressed against the wall in case she'd falter. Rogue quickly moved away when she entered the next room.

Rumble littered the floor, chairs were thrown across the room, the once strong wood tables were blasted apart, and in the middle laid an old man, trapped under a large bit of the fallen ceiling. She rushed to his side, trying to lift the stuff off him. It shifted slowly to fall in a mighty bang next to the fallen body.

Rogue crouched down, putting a finger to his jugular, trying to find his pulse.

"Can't feel anything with these damn gloves," she complained in rage.

She looked down on the old face covered with wrinkles, showing his old smiles at the corners of his mouth, or his frowns upon his forehead. 

"Please, don't be dead..."

To her delight he shifted, his hand twitching as if he'd just lost something, a scowl appearing. He groaned as he tried to shift his body weight.

"Don't move," Rogue told him softly. "Ya might have broken or strained somethin', Ah'll go and get some help..."

"No... Just leave..."

"Shh... It's all right..."

"No!" he yelled, his hand grabbing her wrist as she tried to move away. 

To her horror, the old man's skin started to 'crawl', softening up. His cheekbones became more pronounced, the sag around his eyes disappearing. His hair started to darken, his grip becoming stronger.

Red on black eyes peered up at her. 

Cliff-hanger, aren't I mean! Hehehe

Well, what you think? Rogue a bit to fascinated by Death? Wait and see... Any idea why Rogue got the voices in her head in the first place, and not simply just the powers? Oh... I got my skin crawling with thick plot. Ah, no... No other Acolytes about, it's not your simple Magneto raid.

I hope you all got the end, or I am a pathetic writer! An old man turning into Remy? What ya think about the new mutant, death? He's going to a complicated one, and not very pleasant. Never feared to grow old in a split second? Well, I just couldn't keep Remy old, he's just got a too good body... ok, I'm going over board.

Luv the reviews, winks at Snitter and the others (luv the bunny on crack!) Yep, I know, Unknown Source, Kitty is a classic, but just couldn't resist... Oh, and Sarah Crysala, I was just looking you up when I realised I'd actually that I'd read one of your fanfictions, the fifth Acolyte? Great! Keep it up Girl! (I suppose you're a girl)

What? I said you'd see Remy in flesh? Well, I know it was only couple of seconds, but more soon, promise. I could have added the after 'bank', but that would have about another two to three days! (I've got work, I finish school at 6 o'clock about four times a week. Plus 2 half days, plus my work afternoon (I've got four tests next week, how mean can teachers get?), and my violin lessons another afternoon... pants and looks for water ) Yep, that is how bad a pathetic occidental girl's life can get. And I complain when kids are dying of hunger, and loads of people are getting bombarded and...

Well, just review, I'll be happy enough.


	4. Good night, sleep tight

Rogue tossed and turned under her covers, uncomfortable. It wasn't because of the bed or the confines of the room. Her psyches were starting to get annoyed.   
  
"Come on, forget about it! I'd like some sleep!"  
  
Rogue gritted her teeth, she hadn't exactly slept much the night before because of them. She didn't want it to happen again. She'd gone down to see Mr McCoy, hoping he would remedy it.   
  
"I'll see to it Rogue," he'd said. But she'd seen the worried look in his eyes. Even her psyche McCoy couldn't help her when he was in 'her' literately.   
  
"Rogue, I'm afraid we can't control our dreams... You will be able to shut them out when you gain control over your mutation..." How long would it take to gain control? Would she end up in an asylum, between padded walls before it ever happened? Her touch problem was now at the end of her list: she was more concerned about her sanity.   
  
And then again, she had no control. Kitty had revealed that morning that 'they' were controlling their powers threw her. She'd tried in vein to phase threw something again.  
  
"I can't do it again, Rogue! I'm, like, tired..."  
  
It was Jean, fed up with the whole thing, that just made something float around, proving the point that Rogue couldn't do anything: they were "their" powers.  
  
"At least we kept something of our own," the red head had added.   
  
Rogue turned again, now facing the small expanse of her room. The faint light of the moon illuminated just enough to be able to see Kitty, sleeping soundlessly and the room in it's usual mess.  
  
But something more was nagging Rogue. The bank, the creepy guy, Gambit, the power surge with Kitty, Gambit...  
  
Yes, it was mostly Gambit. Seeing him go old to young in a couple of seconds was the freakiest thing she'd ever witnessed. That was saying a lot when she was living in the Heaven of freaks, and freaks among freaks, like herself... But that wasn't the point. He had...   
  
"...got oldy in a second! Oh my God!" Kitty put it.   
  
"I just hope it didn't happen to me, well us, I mean Rogue... I never really imagined myself old..."  
  
"Ageing is a natural process that..."  
  
"I'm ten in a half!" Jamie had added.   
  
"Wicked," someone else had said.   
  
"Never got old," Wolverine grumbled.   
  
"Gambit was hot!" Jubilee squeaked.   
  
Yes, and it came back to Gambit again. Remy Lebeau, how he liked to call himself, was hiding: in the psyche form and probably in reality too.   
  
She'd turned her head, just a second distracted by the blaring sirens from outside of the bank (did you think that the police and firemen wouldn't have noticed a bank in wreckage?) , and he'd left. It annoyed her. She should have done like Logan had proposed.  
  
A "Flying quick to the head while he recovers!" before he left without a word.   
  
She knew he had recognised her, she'd seen it clearly in his expression: those blazing eyes.   
  
Rogue turned over again.   
  
Yes, so he had recognised her... But his expression had been serious, nearly surprised, panicked. Something she'd never seen 'felt' in him. It had even baffled Remy psyche. The proof: Rogue had tried to get something out of him (since she'd left the bank with the help of the X-men, safely taking some wounded humans out from the place..). But that was another long story. It was clear that Gambit was hiding from her. The psyches had revealed poor information on his behalf (could they imagine themselves in there?). She had called him, asked questions like: "What were ya doing there?"; "what was with the creepy guy?"; "Swamp Rat! If ya don't answer me I'll..."... And so on.  
  
It must have something serious, maybe something from his past that Rogue couldn't detect (how had he managed to block off all his memories in the first place?)   
  
"Remy? Tell meh what's going on!" Rogue could nearly feel his scattered thoughts, there were... She groaned, she couldn't discern what thy were anymore.  
  
Remy wasn't quite! He was annoyingly sarcastic, had a ego bigger than the earth... He would peek in every now and then: a confident line, a funny remark, he didn't seem too phased being trapped in her body, it was Rogue that would feeling uncomfortable when he would remark a pretty girl... And now his missing presence was making her worried. What was so important that had happened at the bank to make him close up? She'd guessed that he had been some sort of thief and all, but this...  
  
"Remy just a copy of the real thing, don't worry 'bout me chere," he finally spoke.   
  
"Ah can feel ya worry (yes, it must have worry), Swamp Rat! Tell meh what's going on..."  
  
He didn't answer, Rogue sat up in frustration. "Ah can't sleep becaus' of ya! Spill the beans now!"  
  
"Ah.. Chere is thinking 'bout Remy. Luv de attention, if only Remy could get out, he'd make it worth a while..."  
  
"Ya messing 'round, Swamp Rat. Spit it out!"  
  
There was a moan from across the room and the ruffle of sheets.  
  
"Rogue, who are you talking too?" Kitty asked with a drowsy voice.   
  
Rogue winced, realising she'd been speaking aloud. For how long?   
  
"No wan [one]."  
  
"This has to stop..." Kitty trailed on, falling back to sleep.  
  
"Rogue," It was the professor. "I might be able to make you go to sleep..."  
  
"No..."  
  
"Rogue, you need a minimum of sleep, you have school tomorrow, and then you can exercise your 'laying back'..."  
  
"Ah'm not tryin' that again! No way!"  
  
"Or you can stay in Mansion all day, in the med Lab with Hank, so he can examine you."  
  
"That's an excellent idea!" Mr McCoy put in.   
  
Rogue cringed, she hated the med Lab, she'd spent enough time in there for a lifetime. Those same white walls, too white and the clean smell, always too clean. Logan growled in threat, he would make her day a hell if she stayed in the med-Lab more than an hour.   
  
"'Kay, Prof., put meh t' sleep. But... will Ah have the dreams?"  
  
"I'm afraid so."  
  
Rogue sighed, feeling suddenly drowsy.   
  
"Good night, Stripes."  
  
"Sleep tight, sweet dreams!" Jamie put in; it was what his mother told him when he went to bed.   
  
It followed with goodnights from most of her psyches, especially Kurt, followed by good words from the adults...  
  
"Bonne nuit, chere," Gambit purred.  
  
"I'm not finished with ya, Swamp R..." Rogue didn't get to finish her phrase for she finally went to sleep.  
  
***  
  
Nah, don't worry about death, he won't be about for a while, well kinda. Oh... this quite short, ya thought you would have Remy and rogue talk along? ahhh, next chapter, for sure. Probably update tomorrow!!! Got it nearly finished, quite long too. Rogue is going to go insane!!!  
  
Ok, gotta go... Haven't finished revising Maths...  
  
Enjoy!! Tomorrow! Promise! 


	5. Loud and Confusing

The real thing is coming up, promise. Gambit is actually going to say more than a few words. Yeah! Thanks for the reviews!!!! You're all great!   
  
***  
  
The next morning, Rogue made sure she'd eaten breakfast and was dressed before 'laying back'. She'd had a terrible night. A pair red eyes had been following her everywhere. Then there was the sewers, the more pleasant ones were where people she didn't recognise declared their love, gave presents, hugs... She could barely stand now.  
  
Logan wanted to have a go.   
  
"Ya would knock mah french teacher out aft'r ten minutes!" Rogue told him.   
  
"Good point, Stripes."  
  
"Why can't, like, I try again?" Kitty asked.  
  
"Each psyche must train," the professor said.  
  
"Play with mah body, ya mean," Rogue groaned angrily.   
  
"Why don't you let me try?" Jean asked.  
  
Thankfully the professor beat Rogue at answering. "Jean, you are a telepath, you won't have any problem at putting your thoughts into actions." Something that worried Rogue more.  
  
"Whatever, not ya, miss Perfect."  
  
"Rogue, you're being childish..."   
  
Rogue ignored the telepath. "Kurt, wanna try?"  
  
"Really?" Kurt exclaimed excitingly.   
  
"Just don't eat anything more, Ah don't want any stains on my clothes."  
  
"Ya, I won't put no stains, mein sister."  
  
"'kay." It wasn't like Rogue cared much about the sate of her clothes, but the psyches like Kitty, Amara, Jean and the rest would complain the whole day about a small stain...  
  
Rogue had been sitting on her bed; she got up with some effort, her temples throbbing. She closed her eyes, in some kind of way faking sleep. The psyche would know what to do next.  
  
***  
  
Kurt flexed his arm. It felt so good, it wasn't like feeling what Rogue felt, it was feeling for himself: the soft material of her green shirt, the tinkling of her hair at her neck. It was the physical feeling that he couldn't get when he was in the background of Rogue's mind.   
  
He bounced out of the room, grabbing his sister's school bag, glimpsing himself in the mirror. He shuddered lightly, remembering that this wasn't him, it was Rogue, with all he girlie things in addition, like the bumps on his chest. She was asleep right in her own body while he walked around in it.  
  
"Mein God, zis is worse dan the image inducer," he thought to himself as he closed the door to the bedroom behind him.  
  
"Hi Rogue," Scott greeted psyche Kurt as 'Rogue' sat down in the back of the car next to... Kurt.  
  
Psyche Kurt didn't hear his friend, he looked at the blue furred demon munching on the rest of his breakfast. Kurt just wanted to grab the toast out of the demon's hands and have it himself. He remembered what Rogue had forbid him to do as large blob of jam threatened to fall on Real Kurt's T-shirt.   
  
The car zoomed out of the Institute while Real Kurt finished his toast off.   
  
"Is something wrong, Rogue?" Jean asked from the front of the car. As a telepath, she must have sensed something different in the Goth.   
  
"Fine," psyche Kurt tried to grumble like his sister. Maybe he shouldn't talk much, or his accent would come up. And why should he, in the first place, do as if nothing had changed in Rogue?  
  
"Slept well, mein sister, after yesterday's stuff?" Real Kurt asked.   
  
"Yeah," Kurt answered.  
  
He decided to look threw Rogue's bag, where was Rogue's letter from Professor X, excusing her from her absence the previous day?  
  
"Like hell, you mean! Like, she kept mumbling in her sleep and all! Could hardly close an eye!" Kitty told them from the other side of the back seat.   
  
***  
  
Rogue woke up in the corridor, in front of 'her' locker this time. She sighed in relief, nothing had gone wrong. She put her books in and went to her first course. She felt much lighter, but the headache hadn't gone.   
  
"You don't have detention, mein sister, for have skipped yesterday I mean," Kurt informed her.   
  
"Good."  
  
She took her french stuff out of her bag, placing them on the end of her desk, like a rampart against her fellow students. She looked at them wearily: they were like a troupe of bulls, who could easily trample Rogue. If only they knew where to hit, they would be able to demolish her... To them she was a haunted tower, better left alone.  
  
The bell rang again. The course started, making Rogue quickly fall into her usual boredom, the teacher's monotone's voice dragging on the minutes. She slowly rubbed her temples, trying to soothe the pain while she listen to her psyches.  
  
"De teacher has a terrible accent," Remy commented.   
  
"I approve," Hank added. "She used to be a fellow colleague of mine, but I never dared to comment on her course..."  
  
"Preneee voutre livre, page dissept...." Mrs Dreuil told her students.   
  
"Terrible accent...."  
  
Rogue didn't decide to say anything (in case it would make her head ache worse ) about Remy's own accent, it was no better in English. She opened her book, page seventeen, but something slipped out from the pages, fluttering to the floor. Unluckily, the teacher had been nearby, spotting the white thing. She approached and picked it up while Rogue wondered what it was. Was it a forgotten note or drawing of the teacher's spotty nose? There would be detention both ways. "Great," Rogue thought, Ah've just escaped a couple of hours of detention to have them added after".   
  
"You dropped this," the teacher said handing it to Rogue.   
  
Rogue quickly took it, mildly surprised to not have been told off, and thanked the teacher before looking down at the piece of paper. I wasn't any ordinary piece of paper, it was a card, the face of the king of spades showing on one of it's sides.   
  
"Where does this come from?" Rogue asked herself, O oh... The headache tripled size in a second. "Wait, is this yar's, Remy?"  
  
"Dis card be of poor quality, Remy uses cards with a plastic covering dat gives dat special little speed when Remy..."  
  
"Cut the crap, Gumbo. It is his," Logan interrupted him, making Rogue nearly jump out of her chair in surprise with the serious tone he was using.   
  
"Logan! We had agreed to not tell!" Jean said. Her voice echoed continuously in Rogue's head, like if it was an immense cavity. [Had...had...had....tell....tell....tell...]  
  
"What do ya mean..." [What...what...what...mean....mean....] This was a little too weird, 'laying back' was indeed not a good thing, the missing memories being bad enough, but now the echoes. It was as if the volume hadn't been adjusted, the speakers misplaced.   
  
"He's a filthy thief," Victor put in. [thief...thief...thief....]  
  
"He's an Acolyte, we can't trust him," Scott added. [Acolyte... Acolyte...Trust...]  
  
"I must agree," [must...must...must...] Hank said. "It might be a plan of Magneto's to capture Rogue."  
  
"Wait, what ya talking 'bout?" Rogue asked, completely confused with the conversation that was going on in her head. Her voice seemed to get louder to her own mind. "Ah'm still here, ya know!"  
  
"Remy came to ya, earlier." [came...came....came....]  
  
"He said, like, you were in danger." [danger...danger...danger]  
  
"That you needed to be protected." [tected...tected...tected...]  
  
"Kurt, why didn't ya tell meh this?" Rogue asked.  
  
"He's dangerous, mein sister, ya can't trust him." [trust...trust....trust...]  
  
"Remy, if ya're a copy of him, tell me what's this about."  
  
"Remy don't know, dis might be real threat or a fake excuse to get near t' ya, chere." [real...real...real...fake...]  
  
"He said something really weird, like: 'He'll find you'." [you...you....you....]  
  
"Tell meh 'bout yesterday. What were ya doing in tha bank."  
  
"Can't tell ya chere. Keep out of it fo' ya own sake." [chere....chere...chere...sake...sake...]  
  
"Look! Ah'm tired of being protected! Spit it out Swamp Rat!" Rogue finally yelled out in frustration.  
  
There were a couple of gasps, and Rogue winced, she'd done it again. In her anger she pushed her stuff off from the table, now sprawled on the floor... (The Headache... It was killing her.) She yelled to someone completely invisible, that existed only in her head.  
  
"Oops!" Kitty psyche supplied to the situation.   
  
"Rogue," the french teacher said, chock written all over her face. "Are you all right?"  
  
Rogue couldn't stand it, they were all looking at her as if she was mad, a pitiful mutant, a disgusting 'thing' that never should have existed. The whole class was quite, staring at her... her... HER! She loathed the attention, she could never understand Jean, or Jubilee... She wanted to scream at them: "F*** off!"  
  
"Can Ah go t' the infirmary?" she asked pathetically instead.  
  
***  
  
The real Kitty was a couple of tables in front, she was worried for her friend. Rogue gathered her things and walked out. Without permission from the teacher, Kitty ran out after her roommate, her friend.   
  
"Rogue! Like, Wait up!" she called running up to Rogue, her flip flops clapping each step against the floor.   
  
"Ah don't want t' talk 'bout it," the Goth coldly snapped.   
  
"Rogue, please, tell me what's going on..." she whined. "Rogue, you've been acting weirdly lately, you don't sleep well, you mumble to yourself..."  
  
"Tell ya what's going on!" Rogue yelled turning around to face Kitty. "Ah have NO idea! Ah have no f***ing IDEA!"  
  
Kitty winced at the bad word. Rogue's eyes were rimmed with tears.   
  
"Ah have a splitting head ache all day! Because of them! Ah can't concentrate! They're always talking! It's like if Ah was in a crowded room! Remy, ya, Kurt, Hank, Jean, the Prof, Logan, Sabertooth, even littl' Jamie, Pyro, Magneto, Ororo, Toad, Lance, Blob, but he's too stupid t' even think!"  
  
"Hey!" Blob exclaimed.   
  
"There's Wanda, but she keeps t' herself, Colossus, Rhane, Bobby, Forge, Tabitha..."  
  
"Oh My God! Rogue! What are they doing to you!" Kitty exclaimed, looking at her friend with a new light. "Do you want to go back to the Institute?"  
  
"No!" Rogue yelled at her.   
  
Rogue then calmed down, felling guilty as she saw Kitty's hurt expression. "No." She had to be strong. "Ah'll see the professor tahnight. Don't worry, it can wait a little' longer..."  
  
Kitty slowly took a step back. "You, like, sure?" she asked, her blue eyes showing all the worry she'd been keeping for her roommate.   
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Ok, see you at lunch time then..." Kitty gave Rogue a reassuring smile, rather forced, before going back to class.   
  
Rogue stayed alone a while in the corridor, just standing there, completely spaced out. She finally decided to get out, have some fresh air on the stairs of the school. She slowly walked out, her psyches quite. After her last outbreak, they wouldn't want speak to her for a while. Did they feel her headache? Did they feel the pain each time they would talk?   
  
She took a long breath, sitting on the school's stairs, putting her head in her hands. Didn't they understand?  
  
"Chere?"  
  
"Remy, Ah don't want t' talk t' ya," Rogue answered dryly aloud, not even caring anymore if someone was around.   
  
"Remy must talk t' ya..."  
  
Rogue's head snapped up. The real Gambit was standing in front of her, trench-coat on his broad shoulders. Rogue's stomach was tied in knots. He was much taller than her, bangs of copper hair falling in front of his red on black eyes, slowly burning away. He had his hands in his pocket, looking abashed. It wasn't psyche Remy.  
  
"'bout earlier..."  
  
"Ah don't remember," Rogue snapped frustrated. Her psyches didn't want to tell her what she had been doing while Kurt was in charge.  
  
"Ya must trust Remy, just fo' dis once..." he trailed off unsure how to make Rogue see this. He was technically the enemy after all.   
  
"Ya're a thief, gumbo," Logan managed to say aloud.  
  
"Worse dan a thief, if chere wants t' know."   
  
"Sorry," Rogue said putting her head back in her hands. "Ah've had a bad morning s' far."  
  
"Remy understands," he said, sitting down next to her.   
  
She tilted her head towards him. Since when had they become some sort of 'friends' to actually talk together this freely? She didn't even share this kind of social exchange with some of the Institute's inhabitants. "How would ya know, Swamp Rat?"  
  
He took a cigarette out of his pocket. Putting a finger to it's end, it lit up with little fuzz sound and a pink light. "Remy's been watching ya since yesterday after-noon," he said taking a long drag. Rogue's nose wrinkled in disapproval as she inhaled the grey smoke that was now floating about.  
  
"Ya've what?" Rogue yelled, jumping up. This was the best: she'd been followed, each moment watched... She'd hadn't seen anything.  
  
"Call it spying while chere was talking t' herself in French class. Terrible accent dat prof."   
  
A smile tugged at the side of her lips. Remy psyche sounded just like this one.   
  
"Talking t' Remy? Etrange, Gambit is de only one dat chere calls Swamp Rat..."  
  
"Ah was talking t' ya."  
  
He adverted his gaze to her, an eyebrow cocked, he seemed confused.  
  
"In mah mind..." Rogue said pointing at her head. "Ya're in there..." Rogue faltered. Why was she speaking of this to a nearly complete stranger? "Tell meh who was de creepy guy from yesterday..." she started.   
  
"Ask de Remy in ya head..." he avoided answering the question.   
  
Rogue huffed, this wasn't going anywhere. They were both as stubborn.   
  
"'kay, Remy will tell ya -again-," he added rather forcefully. "He be de one that put ya in de deep merde."  
  
Gambit lifted his head, his eyes roaming around the entrance of the school. Rogue watched the red on black eyes; they were deep, entrancing her own gaze. He looked down at her: those dangerous eyes meeting Rogue's cold green ones. He flicked his cigarette away as he prepared himself to tell her 'what' was going on.   
  
***  
  
Always more questions... But I promise, promise promise that next chapter explains everything!!! How does that go? Hey! This was quite a long chapter to my usual standards... It wasn't a completely insane chapter for Rogue, but next time she's going to have trouble with them, she WILL have BIG trouble. Poor Rogue... Sighs...Aren't I mean, more torture for your favourite character!   
  
Oh, I've put a small hint to what it is at the beginning of the chapter. It's quite obvious.  
  
Well, I hope you understood that the psyches can feel Rogue's mood, but not her physical pain: they don't understand why Rogue is always so frustrated against them. Only psyche Xavier can really discern what she feels....  
  
Meanwhile, why don't you review? The proposition of the first chapter still stands. How do you think Rogue should react to an 'angry' mob of psyches? They've being quite pacific for the moment... for the moment (Hint! Hint right here!)  
  
Ok, you can reviews now... (Another hint if you must know... ;) ) 


	6. Desperate for control

T  
  
*************************************************************  
  
The silence was heavy.   
  
Rogue was sitting in a small office, with another awful headache, waiting. She massed her temples once again. After her fit in French class, after have met Gambit, she was waiting not so patiently.   
  
What must she do? What must she choose?   
  
She'd been sent to the Kelly's office, not dreading his opinions, but something more frightful, more dangerous that was to come.   
  
It ate at her mind, it had come down to a dark decision.  
  
The clock ticked by, five minutes... half an hour, Kelly never came. And she was still waiting, about to burst, on her own. Her psyches hadn't decided to start talking again, Rogue hoped they had finally understood how painful it was when they did.   
  
It was a race for control, who would win it?  
  
However, the lack of sleep, the constant headache, the annoying questions, decisions that had to be made were taking their tow on Rogue. Her head kept slipping down, to suddenly jerk up realising she'd nearly fallen asleep, and so on, seeming to repeat itself endlessly.   
  
Control... Who could give it?  
  
Rogue had nearly been waiting for an hour now when her psyches decided to reappear to her distress.  
  
"Rogue, like, what happened to you? There's nothing to get angry about!* [like..like...like...about...] Not again...  
  
"Stripes, if ya were having a hard time with us, ya should have said something." [us...us...us...us...thing....thing...]  
  
Rogue started shaking, gripping the sides of her chair, knuckles becoming white. Each word was like a hammer thrown at her head.   
  
"Please," she muttered, biting her lip in pain. "Stop..." Her voice was feverish. Was it sweat beading down the side of her face? Or was it tears?  
  
"Mein sister, what is happening?"   
  
"Stop what?"   
  
Rogue gasped. "Please, not again..." She closed her eyes. So tired... But if she went to sleep, the dreams would come back, and she would wake with a bigger headache. Did it never end?   
  
Pump..Pump... What was that noise?   
  
"Calm down everyone, Rogue is having some difficulties..." the Professor started but was soon cut off by the voices. How did it manage to get to this state?   
  
[Stripes...like...worry....chere....stop....sheila....nyet....child...]  
  
Again and again they shot out threw her mind, wounding her each time. Her lip started to bleed, but she bit ever more fiercely, the pain in her lip was nothing compared to the one in her head. She hoped they felt it... Please feel it! Understand! Stop!  
  
Rogue lowered her head, her white hair falling in front of her eyes like a curtain on the outside world. Maybe if she went deeper in her consciousness, she would make them feel, make them understand, and then they would stop.  
  
She tried to concentrate, shaking more heavily.   
  
He'd teach her to control... Just like Gambit and his powers... Trick, hurt, kill... They would trick her to join them, she would hurt her old friends, she would kill them. Control, she needed it desperately.   
  
"Where's Kelly?" she burst out, a sane thought coming out of the immense jumble that was her mind at the moment.   
  
***  
  
Kelly was right there, watching her from the corner of the room. He'd slipped in, started talking to her but never got any response out of the teen. She was in her world, and he was dangerously fascinated about the young mutant. She was hurting herself, blood dripping freely from her lip, colouring her pale face. She was blind to the exterior, completely unfocused, dangerous. It was exactly what he'd tried to show to the world: these mutants weren't only dangerous the population with which they were living in, they were also dangerous to themselves. It was a favour they were giving them, controlling their lives to not hurt.   
  
He nearly jumped out of his skin when she asked where he was. It was a shrill scream, exhausted, pleading…  
  
Kelly advanced towards his desk, trying not to be brusque. He picked up his phone, about to dial the number, when there was a knock on the door.   
  
They couldn't come in, not with her like this. She needed to be disposed of quickly.   
  
"Wait a second!" he called hoping it wouldn't wake the teen out of her reverie. She didn't, her eyes were still violently shut, her hands gripping the side of her chair. He dialled the number quickly. There were a couple rings before someone picked dup.  
  
"Friend of Humanity Secretary speaking here..." a feminine voice said on the other side of the line.  
  
"Yes, Hello.." Kelly started, but the line was suddenly cut to a dead beep.   
  
He slowly turned around, holding his breath towards face the mutant named Rogue.   
  
Her brilliant green eyes were open, fixing him.  
  
"Don't ya dare, bub," she growled.   
  
The phone receiver flew out of his hand, smashing against the wall.   
  
Someone knocked on the door again.   
  
"Ya dirty thing, I'll skin ya alive…"   
  
Kelly gasped, her mouth was closed, she couldn't have been speaking, was he hearing things?  
  
And then he fell to the floor, grasping his head in his hands, howling to death. His head ached to the point of exploding, as if someone had thrust a pole threw his temple…  
  
The door opened, a female figure slid inside the room, quickly advancing on Kelly. A pink energy knife in hand, she drove it in his skull with a swift movement, making him crumble to the floor. Her purple hair hung in a ponytail behind her head, it swung widely as she turned towards Rogue.  
  
"Let's talk, luv," she said with a thick British accent, a smirk drawn on her lips.   
  
***  
  
Rogue opened her eyes, someone was standing in front of her, grasping her shoulder. Her head-ache seemed to fade lightly.   
  
"Hey, wake up, got some talking to do," the figure said.   
  
The words slowly made sense to Rogue. She looked up from here she sat, the person's face was blurred. What was that metallic taste in her mouth?   
  
"Listen, we can help you, real help… No more voices, no more pain…"  
  
Rogue wanted to scream and run: they had found her. Gambit was right, if Death hadn't killed her, it was to better use her.   
  
"Refuse, chere!"  
  
Psyche Remy's plea only made Rogue sink further, squeezing her eyes in pain again, making her close up even more.  
  
"Listen! We can make it all go away!"  
  
The psyches started to panic, they didn't want this.  
  
"Rogue no!!!"  
  
"Refuse!"  
  
"I don't want to!"  
  
"It's bad!"  
  
The figure shook her. "You've got potential, child, we will help you control your powers…"  
  
All the psyche's seemed to fade, there was only one word flashing in pink neon, that could be seen: "Control". Control meant no more head-aches, it meant being able to touch, it meant a normal life, it meant not sucking people in all the time, being forced to eat something you didn't like because of the voices in your head, be all tidy and clean for them, or put down the volume of your music… It meant freedom. But freedom for another cell? Where you would be controlled by some old guy, doing things you didn't like.   
  
"Sinister," that name had managed to put dread in Remy. He said he had escaped, that he was still on the run, he had control and had some extensive freedom. Could she do the same?   
  
"Your professor will never be able to help you, how much time have you been there? Nearly a year? A bit less a bit more? With us, you'll be able to control your power in two weeks, three..."  
  
Xavier had said he would help her control her powers, but since she'd been with him, Rogue had gone way downhill in any control: her psyches managing to subdue her and control her body, bringing major confusion in her chaotic mind. Hank was good natured, but he searched, and searched with no results.  
  
"Touch her! Fight her!" her psyches yelled, making Rogue's link with sanity very fin.   
  
She groaned in pain, the same pain that always made her realise that she had no control.  
  
"Rogue! Quit the crap! Get out!"  
  
"The Hell with ya!" Rogue screamed at them. "Ah want control…"  
  
"That's good enough for me," the figure hissed before knocking Rogue out.   
  
***  
  
And that won't be Rogue's hardest moment! So, I hope you understood who was trying to recruit her, if you're a comic fan, or read loads of fanfiction, you know who Sinister is.   
  
Well, what did you think about the chapter? I, like, went threw it three times, different ways to join the little clan of Mister Sinister... Poor Gambit, he doesn't know Rogue will be his downfall... (ops, I might have put a too big hit here! Chuckles evenly.) Talking bout Gambit, I haven't put him too much in human body yet... It'll come.  
  
Well, why don't you click on the blue button, just bellow, yeah that one! (hint * sighs* *...) 


	7. Waking up from the nightmare

Rogue woke up with a jerk, gasping for air, her nightmare replaying in her head. She quickly took in her surroundings, frightened that that horrible dream had been true, and that she was in a lab, in a cell. She sighed in relief, she was in her bed and on the other side of the room was Kitty, sleeping heavily. It had only been a bad dream, just a bad dream.  
  
She got up, opening the door of her room slowly, she sneaked out in her pyjama pants and tank top, heading for the bathroom. In the dead of night, her footsteps seemed to echo down the corridor. If Logan was about, he surely must have heard her.  
  
She locked herself in the bathroom, heading to the washbasin. Splashing water on her face she thought about her nightmare. It was maybe created from Gambit's existence. She shuddered, wandering if in reality, she would have chosen to be cut up by a mad scientist, just to have control. She shrugged it off, wiping her face dry with a towel.  
  
There was a light knock on the door, her head wiped around, frightened that her dream was replaying again. But no, she was still in the bathroom. She chuckled to herself, it was amazing sometimes how she would get frightened for a nothing.  
  
"Stripes?" Logan called from the other side of the door. "Is everything alright?" There was no: "Stripes, is it you?": Logan could smell out anyone.  
  
"Yeah," Rogue said opening the door to the bathroom.  
  
Logan looked dishevelled: she must have woken him up from bed. His blue hair was in a mess, he was only wearing a pair of boxers, an old T-shirt and some socks.  
  
"Ah'm fine," Rogue told him again forcing a smile, trying to make his worried expression leave.  
  
"Don't pretend with me, kid."  
  
Rogue dropped her smile. "It was just a nightmare, sorry t' have woken ya up, Wolvie."  
  
He sniffed in displeasure, "Don't call me Wolvie, Stripes. It sounds like I'm a big teddy bear."  
  
This got a true smile out of Rogue. It felt good to be with Logan, he was some sort of surrogate father.  
  
"Ah'll just go down t' have a drink," she told him.  
  
He nodded. "I'll come with you."  
  
They both padded down to the kitchen.  
  
Rogue took a glass of milk for herself, while Logan popped out a claw to open his bottle of beer. They both sat down at the table, facing each other.  
  
"Tell me about your nightmare, Kid."  
  
Rogue sighed, Logan just didn't know when to drop something, he was way too stubborn.  
  
"Ah dreamt that Ah would have done anythin' t' get control of mah pow'ar."  
  
"We all do that dream, once in a while. Don't need to worry about it."  
  
There was a pause; the silence filtering threw the scene. Rogue lifted her eyes to look at Logan's brown ones. They shone with worry and suspicion.  
  
"Ah dreamt that Ah had done somethin' terrible t' get control."  
  
Logan seemed more interested than ever.  
  
"A bit like ya, Ah suppose..."  
  
"How like me?" Logan asked, he seemed to have forgotten his beer, something quite intriguing to Rogue. She wasn't too sure if she wanted to continue anymore.  
  
"The operations, the mind controlling, a contract that would have made meh some kind of assassin."  
  
He frowned. "I never told you anything like this, Stripes."  
  
"Ya 'in mah mind'..." Rogue started, pointing at her head. The gesture seemed familiar. "Ah absorbed ya." Then the realisation struck her hard. He was maybe in her mind, but she never found out something like this from his memories, because he simply didn't have any memories going back that far.  
  
"I'd prefer that ya don't go looking threw my memories, Kid. Ya won't find anything good." He scratched his chin, where a couple of days beard had grown. "I couldn't sleep either," he confessed.  
  
Rogue was intrigued about his mood: he seemed distant...  
  
"Ya scared us all: ya were gone a month." Rogue's mind started to real. What was he talking about? She'd never left the Institute! "We thought ya were dead, Kid. It's nice to have ya back, even if ya don't want to tell us what ya did."  
  
Rogue's hand trembled as she took a gulp of her milk. 'Gone a month'... What did this mean? Why couldn't she remember? Was it a trick of her psyches, had she 'laid back' to long? Had they taken control of her that long? Logan was saying that she didn't want to tell where she'd been. The problem was: she didn't know. She was waiting any second now for the prank to be revealed, and he would say: "It was just a joke." Bobby would come out of his hidden corner, a camera in hand. However, this was Logan, and he was still fixing her with a grave expression.  
  
"I just hope it was worth it, Rogue," he finally said retreating from the kitchen with his beer.  
  
Rogue had completely forgotten about her own drink.  
  
Her fingers travelled threw her hair, trying to understand... She put her elbows on the top of the table, her palms resting at the back of he neck.  
  
"Ah hope it has nothing' t' do with ya," she told her psyches.  
  
Then her fingers felt something rough on the back of her neck. She traced it: it was a straight line going from her scalp to the top of her back... that went even further down.  
  
She took her hands away in panic. What was it? She never knew that she had something like that on her body.  
  
"Professor! Kurt! Logan! What is it?!?!?"  
  
She waited for a response, but only silence answered her.  
  
"Kitty?" She even called for Jean and Scott. Why weren't they answering?  
  
She wandered the mansion aimlessly. She couldn't sleep. This was too much for her. Logan was telling her that she'd been missing for a month... Maybe she hadn't listened carefully enough, he'd maybe said something else like: "Listing for lunch" or something stupid like that. She had heard it clearly, it was: "missing for a month." And where had her psyches gone? They never stayed this quite...  
  
She arrived to the living room: the couches were disposed of differently from what she remembered, the TV was bigger and there was now a pool table. She walked over to the wide windows and gasped as she saw the garden outside. It was in shreds, even in the pale moonlight she saw that there were no more hedges, no more pretty lanes of flowers: it looked like as if it had been abandoned. Nothing like the last time she'd gone jogging, trying to soothe her headache.  
  
Something caught her attention, the reflection of red eyes in the window. Her heart was suddenly beating franticly, her body covered in cold sweat.  
  
"It's only Remy, chere..." the owner of the red eyes said, lacing his arms around Rogue's waist.  
  
The touch made the Goth rebuke, quickly punching Gambit in the ribs with her elbow. The gesture made him step back.  
  
Rogue took a defensive position, waiting for her enemy to make the next move. She saw him put up his hands in a peaceful gesture. He was about to speak but Rogue didn't let him, aiming for his head with a right punch.  
  
Her hand hit something hard: Gambit had caught her flying fist in his hand.  
  
"Calm down chere, ya not in danger right now..."  
  
He took her other hand tenderly. This was all very confusing to Rogue, she was attacking him and he was... What was he doing in the first place?  
  
"Ya safe..." His words seemed to soothe her and she actually let him step forward. She suddenly became conscious of his closeness, much too close than she'd allow anyone to come, 'anyone'... Her fear was forgotten as she became aware of the warmth of his body, her fin pyjamas not being able to hide it from her.  
  
"Miss meh, chere?" he asked with a smirk.  
  
Rogue gasped as his hand travelled down her side onto her hip, his firm but soft grip pulling her forward. She was like a puppet in his hands. Rogue forgot her troubles for a moment, her supposed disappearance, her missing psyches, the scar along her back. The only thing she was focused on were his blazing eyes, two spots of red light dancing in the dark. Why she'd thought them threatening was lost to her.  
  
The slow caresses on the small of her back, his breath against her face were making her lose her mind.  
  
"What." she whispered, but was cut off as he kissed her. It was a tender kiss, soft and comforting. His lips lightly left hers to come back more forcefully.  
  
Her breath was taken away, maybe even her heart, giving everything to him, stripping her bare of the protectiveness she'd tried so hard to create by staying away from everyone. She lifted her hands as if to stroke his cheeks, something she wished so much to do, touch him with her bare hands...  
  
Instead, he got a punch, the same punch she'd tried to give him earlier, but not as hard as the first one had attended to be. She felt the usual pull of memories, but they retreated as quickly as they had came. Her skin had no effect on him. His head jerked back from the thrust.  
  
"Don't play with meh, Swamp Rat. Ah'll kill ya if ya tempt any of ya other tricks."  
  
He growled. "What's gotten inta ya, chere? The diable got up ya pants?"  
  
"Ya filthy thief," she hissed, using Sabertooth's favourite line. "How did ya do it?"  
  
"Do what? Ya not in ya normal state. Maybe de trip was harder on ya than Remy thought."  
  
"In mah normal state! Hell Ah'm not!" Rogue said in low voice. She didn't want Logan to come down, she wanted this to be between him and her. "How did ya touch meh?" Her voice trembled on the last word. His kiss, his caress... How? Another question added to her list.  
  
"Ya just got out of it," he said. "and ya want t' talk 'bout it again so soon?". He wiped the little blood that Rogue had spilt from his brow. "We were kissing just two days ago, an' now ya hitting meh? It's meant t' be de other way 'round, chere."  
  
Was he lying? Had her memory been wiped?  
  
Worse... Had it been more than a nightmare? Was this control?  
  
"Chere, don't ya remembe'?"  
  
"Ah don't remember... anything."  
  
"Who's down there?" Logan called from up the stairs in the big hall.  
  
Of course Wolverine would be suspicious, he wouldn't manage to identify Remy's smell. Some part in Rogue didn't want him to leave, but neither did she really want him to get caught.  
  
She was considering about trying to knock Gambit unconscious when he whispered something to her ear before lightly kissing her on the lips. He slipped into shadow as quickly as he had come out of it, leaving Rogue once more on her own.  
  
Her temples started throb, not because of talking psyches anymore.  
  
****  
  
This wasn't what you expected, isn't it? Now, how did Gambit get close enough to be kissing her this familiarly? Wwoooowoo! (is he faking?) Her psyches are shut out, no more advice, and a suspicious scar on her back... This is plot for you!  
  
I confess I was little nervous last chapter, I couldn't figure out really how to make the transit for rogue, make her choose what she did (in this case: being cut up by a mad scientist to have control, and other after- actions she's going to have to do for him...). Well, I couldn't let Rogue stay with the Marauders, not for now. She's an advantage, being in the X- men, she can give Sinister some precious information on the group to destroy them in the end (oops, I'm telling all my plot! That's not good!)  
  
Well? Tell me what you think?  
  
Weeble Wobble Chic: Thirteen and talking like a teacher? Mhmmm... I'm not sure if that is good sign... You might sound like a bicentennial in three years! Keep going! I'm not sure if making you confused to who is speaking is a good thing or not, because it shows how Rogue gets confused between her psyche people, and the real people... But things like * * would do the trick to make you follow more easily...  
  
Sarah-Crysala: Don't worry about not understanding who the girl with purple hair is, I'll answer it soon enough.  
  
Snitter in Rivendell: Oo!! Don't worry! Still lots of Angst!! It's worse than just fighting against them, she's going to be fighting against them, from inside.... Evil!  
  
Winter Fire: You won't fall off! Except if Fanfiction's server is out any longer.... Grh...  
  
Thanks for all the Reviews! You're my gold pot of motivation! 


	8. Unwanted consequences

Warning: read every little word! Or you might get lost!  
  
****  
  
A pale face looked back at Rogue from the mirror. Her eyes were unusually bright, there were large dark circles around them, she hadn't slept the whole night. Her hair was wet from the shower, matted to her head. She touched her face, the skin seemed tight around her skull, and without her make-up, she looked haunting. It looked like a permanent mask of fear. She sneered at her own image, tightening her towel around herself. She hated that face, those skinny pale arms, the skeleton like fingers grasping the top of her towel. But it was something else she wanted to see.  
  
Rogue hadn't regained her room that night, staying in the living room. Before anyone had got up yet, she'd gone to the bathroom to clean up: she felt filthy after Gambit's touch.  
  
Rogue took a couple of steps back to be able to fully look at herself in the mirror. With a cold resignation, she slowly let the towel slip from her shoulders... She turned around, making her back face the mirror. She looked over her shoulder into her reflection. She nearly sobbed. She'd been right.  
  
There was an awful scar running down her neck and back, following her spine. She looked away in anger. Not only angry at her reflection, but also disgusted at herself. She'd let herself be cut up by someone, to have control... She'd let herself be cut up by Sinister, Gambit's only fear. And those red eyes came back to her, not those blazing eyes that were Gambit's, but colder ones, mean... She'd seen them somewhere, somewhere in the month she'd been missing. She was sure of it.  
  
Then she realised what kind of person she was: a traitor. Always that traitor. She'd first left the Brotherhood for their nemesis, the X-men. She'd left because she thought that Xavier's dream was the 'right' dream, peace and all. Had she left for something more, unconsciously? Had she thought that Xavier was the one that could give her control? Rogue had hoped so. But she had found nothing to help her at the Institute, and had moved on. Had she really believed in Xavier's dream in the first place? Had she mistook it for something else? No, it was exactly what she had made it out to be: just a dream, maybe it was just another lost cause.  
  
Rogue quickly got dressed, her hair still wet. She then applied her make up: she left out the white cream, her face was pale enough, and just added the dark eye-shadow. She finally picked up the last piece of her clothing: her gloves. These were long and black. She put them on, it was her way of hiding from the others, make them think she was still the same untouchable Goth.  
  
Rogue took a step out when she was assaulted by two figures: a crying Kitty and a happy Kurt. They jumped on her, hugging her fiercely.  
  
"What the." Rogue cried out.  
  
"Rogue! You're, like, back!"  
  
"Mein sister! We missed ya so much!"  
  
Rogue finally managed to get her breath back, stepping out of the big hug.  
  
"I was, like, so pleased when I heard you were back yesterday! But I didn't want to wake you up! You looked so peaceful sleeping!"  
  
"Where did you go? What did you do! Tell uz!" Kurt exclaimed.  
  
Rogue was lost for words. Here were probably her best friends, Kurt and Kitty. They looked so genuine, had they worried that much for her?  
  
"Ah." she started.  
  
"Let's, like, talk it over breakfast!"  
  
"Go'd idea, Kittycat, I'm starving!"  
  
So Rogue was dragged along to the kitchen, as she tried desperately to come up with a lie. She couldn't tell them what she had done, they would hate her for it. They looked so happy at the moment. She couldn't spoil it, not like this.  
  
The kitchen was now full, Jean gave Rogue a warm smile, as Scott came to her side to shake her hand (he was always so formal).  
  
Bobby whistled: 'You better not get this girl annoyed! Understood, Newbies?"  
  
A little troop of girls and boys that Rogue had never seen before were at the end of the table. They looked at Rogue worriedly. They stared at her, frozen on their stools: a small girl with very curly blond hair, a boy about ten with wood-like skin and another girl, looking quite transparent. Rogue must have looked like a skeleton to them. She wanted to sneer at them and scream: "So what! Never seen freak as big as meh?" But Rogue did nothing of it, just gave them a dark look before sitting down at a stool Jubilee had specially got off for her. Kitty and Kurt were still by her side.  
  
They passed her the milk, the cereals, a bun. Rogue was the centre of attention that morning, she hated it. She just wanted to sulk in a dark corner, but that liberty was taken from her as Sam, Jubilee, Forge and all the others started to shower her with questions.  
  
Rogue went for the: "Tour of the Country", "Wanted som' time t' mah self", "sort things out". And they all took it in without question, nodding here and there to Rogue's story, commenting on some things, asking some small detail that Rogue was quick to invent. She lied to them quite well. All believed her, except one; a sceptic Logan who was at the end of the table, a cup of coffee in hand, pretending to read the new-paper when actually he was listening attentively. Rogue didn't miss this last detail, Logan could catch a lie a mile away.  
  
Rogue remembered her conversation with him, the night before, she suspected that he knew what she had actually done.  
  
Then it was Rogue's turn to ask questions.  
  
"Professor X is in Massachusetts with Miss Monroe..."  
  
"Logan's been going crazy keeping us out of trouble!"  
  
"I bet there's something between Logan and Ororo..." Kitty whispered in Rogue's ear.  
  
Logan shocked on his coffee from across the table, giving the evidence of the relationship between the two adults clearly.  
  
"McCoy left two weeks ago," the older man said putting down his newspaper. "For some new job in a big lab. So it'll be a bit hard if ya want him to examine you, Stripes."  
  
Rogue flinched, had he seen her neck with the scar?  
  
Rogue tried to detach herself from the talking mob, to become smaller and more insignificant: she wanted to get away from the kitchen. Her guilt level had raised to higher grounds, and she just couldn't stand it anymore.  
  
She finally managed to slip away into the living room and out in the garden.  
  
It was broad day light, but it was still quite dark: a storm was preparing it's self above Rogue's head. The clouds were of dark grey, the bitter wind of beginning of December was blowing strongly. Rogue put her arms around her and continued her walk. Ororo Monroe must have been away for a long time for the garden to get this bad. Weeds were taking over the delicate flower beds, the hedges were all deformed and dying. It was a mess. Rogue could remember the last time she'd gone jogging out here. It had been peaceful and welcoming. It was now cold, ruff and shrivelled.  
  
She walked passed a bench intertwined with brambles, making it impossible to sit down anymore... a burnt down tree. Everything seemed to have changed a lot. She came up to the lake.  
  
Rogue crouched down next to the water. Taking one of her gloves off, she plunged her hand in it. She enjoyed the cold touch, the ripples leaving her hand as she would caress the liquid, the transparent drops on the tip of her fingers as she took it out of the water, and then the faint drip drip when they would fall back into the lake. The noise soothed her, creating a melody with the whistling of the leaves in the wind. Even if everything looked dead, it was still enjoyable sitting next to the lake. No, some things hadn't changed.  
  
Rogue finally took her hand out of the water; it now felt numb. She dried it on her trousers and was about to put her glove back on, when someone took it away, warming it with his own hands.  
  
Rogue looked up into Gambit's red on black eyes. She was too tired to fight; the night had worn her out.  
  
"What do ya want, Swamp Rat," Rogue said taking her hand away from his grasp, putting the glove back on.  
  
"To see ya, chere," he said, putting his hand on her back. Rogue flinched away.  
  
"Don't touch meh," she warned him getting up. Gambit followed suit. "Ah want some answers now."  
  
"Ask." He put his hands in his pockets.  
  
"Where have Ah been, this past month?" Rogue wanted to be sure of what she'd done.  
  
Remy sighed, looking away. "Remy told ya t' refuse Sinister's invitation, but chere was desperate, and finally accepted."  
  
Rogue nodded, she remembered that part all too well, the pain... that throbbing pain in her head, making her lose her mind.  
  
"Chere and Remy met again..." he paused. "Remy had dis last job for Sinister, t' repay fo' the control he'd given meh ove' mah own power, long ago." He was lightly dropping his usual manner of talking in the third person. "Remy 'foir'ed that..."  
  
"Ya what?" Rogue asked, not understanding his gibberish.  
  
"Didn't get de job threw..."  
  
"Why?"  
  
Remy crossed his arms, looking away. It was obvious he didn't want to talk about that part. Rogue winced inwardly, he'd already explained to her once what kind of job Sinister made you do.  
  
"'Kay, just tell meh why Ah'm not in his lab anymor'," Rogue told him impatiently.  
  
The sky above them started to grumble, lightning strikes swept across the grey clouds. The air started to get colder. The leaves were swept up from the ground, dust flying in the air. Rogue squinted as her eyes pricked with the small particles. Her hair flew across her face, she quickly put it back behind her ear.  
  
"He's finished messing with ya genetic code... Ya've got control, exactly what ya wanted, chere," he said rather bad-tempered.  
  
Rogue winced; it was her turn to look away. No one understood what hell she'd been living... Gambit must have seen Rogue's angry look, for he apologised.  
  
"Sorry chere, Ah didn't mean t' say that. Remy not comfortable with de subject..."  
  
"Whatever, Swamp Rat," Rogue said as she started to leave.  
  
"Wait, Dee's something ya must know, chere."  
  
"What?" Rogue asked, her back turned towards him. The dead leaves rustled around her feet with the growing wind.  
  
" Ya're at the Mansion, becaus' Remy took ya here. Ya kind of escaped the mad Scientist. Ya psyche's, most are closed away. Dat's why ya can't hear dem..."  
  
Rogue stiffened up. She felt Gambit approach from behind.  
  
"What would ya know about it..." Rogue gritted her teeth; this was going around in circles.  
  
There was another lightning strike.  
  
"Chere told meh so," he whispered huskily by her ear. Rogue felt herself shiver with pleasure. "Remy be in ya head..."  
  
Rogue turned around, facing a grinning Remy.  
  
"Of course, chere can't remember, but Remy asked ya t' abosorb him," he said matter of fact.  
  
Rogue looked at him sceptically. "If ya trying t' play 'round wi' meh, it ain't working, shugah" she said cocking an eyebrow.  
  
Remy winked at her, lifting a hand. "Watch..."  
  
His hand was gloved in leather, some fingers were bare for some unknown use, these gloves didn't have the purpose of warming your hand. He snapped his fingers, and to Rogue's disbelief, they started to disappear, his handsome face blurring, his body seemed to fall into dust, flying away in the wind. Rogue lifted her own hand, trying to grab him, as if it would keep him by her side.  
  
"Remy!" she cried out.  
  
Rogue felt a too familiar arms circle her waist. "Right here, chere."  
  
"How? What did ya do?" she blurted out.  
  
He reluctantly took his arms away. "Chere absorbed Gambit, not whole like Remy asked ya, but enough just to render Remy unconscious fo' a while."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Ya head be a better cell than in Sinister's cellar. Remy told ya, he didn't go threw with da job." His haunting smile came back. "Ya kiss well, chere..."  
  
"Taht's it!" Rogue declared. "Ah'm leaving! Ah'm not getting messed up by ya."  
  
She walked quickly away, not looking back next to the lake where she'd left him. She passed the dying hedges again, heading to the Mansion.  
  
Just as she closed the door behind her, it started to pour cats and dogs outside; the scenery quickly disappeared behind curtains of water. Rogue smirked with satisfaction, wherever Gambit was now, he was getting drenched, not even his trench-coat would be able to keep the water out.  
  
"Gambit not be tangible, but wouldn't mind seeing chere wet..."  
  
Rogue jumped out of her skin, turning around. She had the impression her heart had been ripped out of her chest. It wasn't possible, it couldn't be possible! There, right in front of her; in the hall; was Gambit. He stood leaning against the stair's banister, a cigarette in hand, the smoke curling upwards.  
  
"Wolverine's going t' smell that straight 'way, ya know," Rogue told hiim with a certain pleasure, crossing her arms. "Ya done like a rat..."  
  
Gambit took a drag, before his cigarette disappeared into fin air.  
  
"Not likely, chere. Remember, Gambit only exists t' ya."  
  
Rogue turned away into the living room. It wasn't possible, she couldn't have absorbed him...  
  
She looked over her shoulder and sighed in relief, he'd gone. It was only an illusion.  
  
Cries of victory took Rogue's attention back to the living room. She smiled faintly. Jamie was sitting on the couch next to a new recruit playing some game on the X-box. Two Jamies held up their arms, yelling happily.  
  
"Ya cheated! Ya got... 'yourself' t' help on only one joystick!" the black boy complained.  
  
The two Jamies stuck their tongues out at the poor boy that was having problems to decide on which Jamie he had to look at while talking.  
  
The small Multiple Man stopped when he finally saw Rogue.  
  
"Rogue!" the two Jamies cried out running over to her. With their small arms they hugged her.  
  
"Get off before Ah hit one of ya and get another another Smurfit out!" Rogue protested, but she was actually happy to see the young boy.  
  
She ruffled both of their hair.  
  
"I thought you got kidnapped! Did you manage to escape? What did the baddies look like? Did you kick their butt?" They both asked.  
  
Rogue chuckled, it was nearly the truth, but her worries were momentary forgotten as she looked down in Jamies's brilliant blue eyes.  
  
'Nah, Ah didn't get kidnapped." Not exacly...  
  
Jamie pouted. But he quikly cheered up again. Do ya want t' play did knew game, where you're a mutant and..."  
  
"Nah, Ah'm useless at those things."  
  
"Jamie! I want a revenge match!" the other mutant yelled.  
  
"'Kay! Coming!" Jamie declared joining his friend back in front of the TV. Rogue sighted to herself, Jamie finally had a friend of his own age.  
  
"Ain't it cute, chere..."  
  
Rogue nearly jumped out of her skin again. Gambit walked up next to her, by the door. His trench-coat had disappeared, replaced by some comfortable jogging trousers and a worn T-shirt. He padded up next to the two young boys, he was bare foot.  
  
He peered at the screen. "Cool... Dis seems a good game." He looked over at Rogue who was like stone. His red eyes twinkled. "Sure ya don't want a game?"  
  
Rogue walked away again, not saying anything this time. If she ignored him long enough, he would leave her subconscious. She went up the stairs, wanting to regain her room. To her despair, he was already at the top. She marched past him, pretending to not have seen him.  
  
"Ya can't do like Remy didn't exist! Remy be right in ya head!"  
  
"Yeah, yeah... That's it, and Ah'm the Queen of England... If ya wanted t' make a joke, ya psyches, find something beteh'..."  
  
"Rogue, who're talking to?"  
  
Rogue groaned: Jean.  
  
The red head approached Rogue, a sincere expression on her face.  
  
Gambit was still there. He whistled at Jean's figure.  
  
Jean's pensive look disappeared. "Hey Rogue, I'm glad you came back," she told the Goth sincerely.  
  
"Remy wouldn't mind a psyche like dis fo' company... Would chere mind absorbing her?"  
  
Jean looked about, as if she'd heard something. Rogue wanted to hit Remy, just like the night before. She didn't want the telepath to get any nearer than physically or mentally possible. However, Rogue just cut the conversation that Jean was trying to make by strolling away to her own room.  
  
"Great fo' ya!" Rogue called back as she opened the door to her bed-room. Rogue then slammed it behind her to show Jean that she didn't want to be disturbed anymore.  
  
"What de hell!" Rogue hissed at Gambit. He was still there, sitting on 'her' bed. "Ya get out raght now!" she yelled at him.  
  
Remy got up from the bed extending his arms as to prove his point. "Listen, Rogue. Remy can't get out, he be in ya head" he explained. "Dis Remy dat ya see, is Remy's psyche..." He waited for it to all make sense to Rogue. "Remy just a developed psyche, instead of just hearing Remy, ya see him too!"  
  
"Where... where are the others?" Rogue babbled. Psyche voices were one thing, but seeing them? It was worse!  
  
"Closed away," Remy said, sitting back down, crossing his legs underneath himself. "Sinister put dem away to not make dem influence ya." The smirk slowly came back to his lips. "He wasn't expecting ya to absorb Gambit again any time soon... Remy be de last and first psyche ya absorbed afte' de operation."  
  
"Why would Ah do such a thing?" Rogue asked.  
  
"Didn't da kiss prove enough?" His eyes twinkled with mischief.  
  
"Prove that Ah was out of mah mind? Tell meh something new..." Rogue shot back.  
  
***  
  
Ok, take this slowly in...  
  
Fuh!!! That was a long chapter, about 320 words! That makes about seven pages in Word....  
  
Remy is a psyche, Rogue's been kissing him, god knows why (he's so hot for crying out loud, but there must be something else.) Logan is on his way to discover what Rogue is hiding, no Hank, or professor to help yet. She's on her 'own' for now (as much as 'on your own' can get with Gambit always walking about.) Nothing has changed towards Jean... Rogue still dislikes her.  
  
Ok! That about sums it up for the moment!  
  
Thanks for the Reviews! You're great! The last chapter actually brought more confusion that the previous one.... Mhhh... I'll have to see about that...  
  
Oh, and Snitter, you weren't far from the matrix thing, it's a mini-matrix in Rogue's own head!  
  
And all of you! The romyness is on it's way!!! But I suppose it's going to be hard/... in which Remy is Rogue going to fall in love? Psyche Remy or Real Remy? Both of them have separated ways (one is in real word, the other in Rogue's head), so they both have their own little story, they're starting to think differently.... (if you understand that!! it's my own kind of mumbling thinking technique: in one word: "berserk"!)  
  
Well, I could have posted this yesterday morning, but my computer decided to not work.... Yesterday night it was the Login section of Fanfiction.net that didn't want to work.... So here you go!  
  
Oh! Don't forget! REVIEW!!!! :p 


	9. Daydreaming

The days passed slowly, the Professor was still away, so no real help with her permanent companion. Gambit would always be in the corner of her vision, spying on the outside world without anybody being aware of his presence. Rogue didn't know how she would cope with more than one visual psyche.  
  
Rogue learnt that she'd been expelled from school, having missed more than two weeks in a row. She was somewhat relieved to know this: no more big crowds, she could stroll around the Mansion without worry. She used this spare time to train, to Logan's disbelief.  
  
Rogue threw her right fist at the punching ball, then her left... Right, left, left, right... And so on.  
  
Sweat ran down her temples. She'd put her hair back in a ponytail, but a couple of white strands fell across her face, obscuring her vision now and again. Right...left....right... Again and again she hit the red punching ball hard, making it swing.  
  
Rogue panted, stopping for a moment to regain her breath. Her face was flushed, her brows creased up in exhaustion. She finally sat down in the middle of the Danger Room. The punching ball, not used anymore, lowered it's self down into the ground. If Rogue needed it again, she'd just call Cerebro for it.  
  
Rogue looked up at Gambit; he was standing in front of her in a white T- shirt and jeans.  
  
"Hey," he simply said. Rogue didn't answer, finally deciding to lie down completely on the floor.  
  
His face obscured Rogue's vision of the Danger Room's ceiling.  
  
"What ya want, Swamp Rat?" she asked.  
  
He smiled showing a perfect row of white teeth. "Chere is sweating like a horse... Not dat de-pleasant, Gambit thinks," His red eyes roamed her body in her old X-man suit, glinting in amusement.  
  
"Keep those eyes of yours on mah face, Cajun!"  
  
He faked a pout, but he quickly went back to smirking.  
  
Rogue frowned. Remy looked so realistic, the faint scar at the far right of his cheek, his thick lashes, his high cheek bones, the light passing threw his copper hair falling around his face, the small subtle on his chin...  
  
"Horses sweat, Men perspire, Women gently glow..." Rogue said. Where did that come from?  
  
He cocked an eyebrow in surprise. "Den chere, ya glowing like Remy's favourite star..."  
  
Rogue shook with laughter... "Have ya got more of ya pathetic lines?" she asked after have calmed down.  
  
"Hey!" Remy defended himself. "It usually works on de femmes..." He looked her over again but with worry this time. "Ya tiring yaself out, chere. Ya don't ya use Wolvie's powers to get fit?"  
  
"What ya talking 'bout, Swamp Rat?"  
  
Remy sat down next to her. "Chere usually uses de psyche powers all the time!" he started. "Remy forgot, chere doesn't remember..."  
  
"How... How did Ah do it?" Using all the powers that she'd absorbed would be the kind of useful thing that would help in battle.  
  
Remy looked pensive. "Not sure, Gambit think ya forced dem out... But ya can use mine fo' de moment, chere" he finally proposed.  
  
Rogue bit her lip... Throwing exploding stuff was quite good... She'd already experienced his power first handed. How could she use them?  
  
"Would ya let Remy guide chere?"  
  
"What ya mean about guiding? ...Ah'm not doing any 'laying back'," Rogue told him suspiciously. "Hate the stuff."  
  
"Nah... ya'll remember everythin', promise, an' give ya de control back afte'."  
  
***  
  
Logan was busy tapping some new exercises into Cerebro from the training sessions. Computers weren't his thing. Each time he'd do something wrong, tap a inappropriate word in or not manage to select an icon, he'd feel his nerves cracking. He just wanted to take his claws out and have a computer massacre. Each time he'd lift his fists, ready to do just that. Fortunately, he'd come back to his senses just in time to calm down and continue his job. It was normally Storm, the professor or Hank that did it, but like they weren't there... He got the annoying job. He preferred to plan everything just before the session started, outside, make unexpected changes to surprise the kids...  
  
Logan smirked, for each mistake he'd make he'd get his revenge by making the sessions harder for the students... Talking about students, Logan would look up once and again at the camera screens, watching Rogue train in the danger room. She was now laying down on the floor. Logan shook his head, she shouldn't suddenly stop the physical effort, she should walk slowly until her heartbeat returned to normal rhythm. He'd give her his piece of mind later.  
  
Rogue worried him. She'd been very strange the night before, acting like she'd never left the Mansion in the first place... And now she was training on her own... Before, she'd just close herself in her room, lay about listening to music, sometimes going jogging, a bit of exercise here and there. But today, she was overdoing herself. Logan wanted to know what had changed in her. She was paler than the last time he'd seen her, she looked always a bit uncomfortable, she winced unconsciously sometimes, as if she was lightly in pain. No one else than him had seen it. That was why he'd told her directly that Hank wasn't there.  
  
However, the most confusing was her smell. Rogue smelt weird, it wasn't hormones (how does could drive him mad!). It was a bit of worry, some guiltiness (he knew those smells by heart.) and all the soaps that kids usually use... and something else. It was rather revolting, he tried not to cringe, he'd already smelt it somewhere before... Yes, on himself. It was the first smell he could remember, after escaping the governmental base where he'd been experimented on. It was Rogue that reminded him of it, when she talked about her nightmare. "The operations," she'd said.  
  
The operations... Logan abandoned his tapping to look at Rogue on the screen.  
  
"Cerebro," Logan told the computer. "Enlarge Danger Room view, frame on Rogue."  
  
-Yes, Wolverine,- a feminine voice replied.  
  
The scene was transferred to the big screen in the middle of the bureau. Logan lied back in his chair, watching as Rogue got back to her feet.  
  
"Put the sound on," Logan ordered.  
  
"Why should ah trust ya," Rogue's voice rang out clear from the microphones.  
  
"Who's Stripes talking to?" Logan asked. "Has that new recruit, the invisible girl, missed school again and is lurking in the Danger Room?"  
  
-Negative,- Cerebro said. -I can't detect anyone else. There is no one else there except Rogue.-  
  
Logan scratched his chin. This was no good news if Stripes was starting to talk to herself. Or was she talking to her 'voices'? He couldn't decide which was worse.  
  
His train of thoughts were interrupted when Rogue started speaking again.  
  
"Ah'll skin ya if ya try and get control over meh... Just stay on demonstrating."  
  
***  
  
Rogue crouched in the darkness of the bushes, waiting for the sentinel's spotlight to change direction.  
  
#Three, two one, go chere!# Gambit said threw the mental connection he was charring with the southern girl.  
  
Rogue smoothly ran out of the bushes, a smirk on her face. She would be the distraction while Gambit did his own thieving... Reaching the wall, she flattened her back against it, and after retaining her breath, she sank into the concrete rampart with Kitty's mutation. She was in the wall, she did one with it. As she phased, her mental connection with Remy was cut. Fortunately, everything had been planned, and Rogue slowly counted up to ten.  
  
"Three....six...nine....ten...."  
  
She ran, she ran 'in' the wall. Unphasing her hand lightly, she used Gambit's power the make the exterior of the barricade flare up in pink. All the cameras and sentinels would see the bright trace running across the wall, without apparent reason. It was a distraction, yes, but not too foolish: it was important that Rogue didn't get identified.  
  
And then it started: the booming of the explosions, the barricade destroyed into rubble. Rogue could hear, with Logan's heighten senses the people inside, yelling, the quick rush of boots against the hard floor, some useless orders sent out... "This will be fun," she thought to herself with another smirk.  
  
***  
  
Logan had gone back to tapping. He had to finish it before the kids came back.  
  
Rogue was still on the big screen. She had stopped talking to Logan's relief and was still on the floor, looking up in the ceiling, her hands behind her head.  
  
-She's sleeping,- Cerebro told him. -Her heart beat has returned to normal.-  
  
Logan glanced at the screen from his keyboard. She was indeed asleep. Her eyes were closed. She looked peaceful that way. Logan had wondered if her psyches were playing a trick on her. However, all had gone well. No strange powers manifesting, no body transformation with Mystique. Rogue would just need to see the Professor when he came back.  
  
He went back to his keyboard. Thinking about Charles and his trip came automatically down to Ororo, and to Logan's distress Kitty. He had the impression that the freshman was having special fun insinuating 'things'. Really, he and Ororo were both adults, they knew how to act properly, even if Ororo would sometimes lecture at his lack of heart...  
  
Logan growled to himself. He did have a heart! Rogue was 'special' to him. She was kind of a lonely person, always on her guards. She'd seemed lucid enough before the whole Apocalypse thing. It was his job to put her back on track. He wouldn't tell her that he was worried sick while she'd gone.  
  
Rogue had vanished suddenly. Kitty had blurted something out like 'voices' and 'she had a terrible head-ache'. It was only later that Hank confirmed that Rogue had been having some 'problems'. Charles had looked if he'd known it all along and had showed no surprise the information.  
  
"What is done is done," the Professor had said philosophically.  
  
"I'll tell ya what's done!" Logan had yelled back at him. "Stripes is missing after some psycho mutant from the dinosaurs time line came and hypnotised her!!!"  
  
"From Antiquity," Hank had corrected him.  
  
He could still remember the professor's annoying calm face. Logan had been in distress; he had found no smell trail that he could follow, nothing at all! That mutant hater principal Kelly said that he'd asked her to come to his office and that she'd never turned up. Logan had been in such a state of panic that he could hardly remember what happened after. Ororo had finally been able to soothe him, the professor knew something.... but all that Wheels said was: "She's chosen her path. I can't tell you that she's safe. However, I assure you that Rogue is conscious of her decision. She'll come back when it'll be time..."  
  
What had stopped him from coming after her was the sudden apparition of new mutants. They seemed to be sprouting everywhere at once. Then they were the terrorist attacks that had been going on regularly... The last in date was a big laboratory in Ohio, with all the soldiers and security systems that would make the Pentagon jealous. Most of their security guards had been killed by some powerful mutant while the base had nearly been torn down. Had it been Apocalypse? Hank got a job over there; undercover, to do some research on what had exactly occured.  
  
***  
  
A young woman with purple hair swung her brilliant pink knives at her attackers, she wore a nasty smirk on her face, and a red tattoo over her left eye. Who could have guessed that Rogue was inside the woman?  
  
Rogue used the soldier as a human shield while she brought up Jean's mutation. Bullets whizzed by Rogue's head, only slightly missing her. Fortunately she already had Logan's powers on and was able to heal any wound, and dodge most of the bullets. Rogue cursed as a one of the shots lodged itself in her thigh. She was happy that Logan always looked out for her in his own way. While Kitty had decided to be stubborn. Why had she suddenly refused to make Rogue phase?  
  
They were about twenty, all with machine guns, shooting in Rogue's general direction. The number was quickly increasing. They were faceless dark forms in he same green uniforms.  
  
Rogue finally brought up a telekinetic shield, the bullets crushing against the invisible barrier. She threw the soldier's body at her attackers, several meters in the air, with an inhuman force; trying to disable them.  
  
Rogue could have breaked down their offensive line easily: by multiplying with Jamie's power, knock them all out with a psychic attack and kill them with Pyro's flame controlling. However, her job was to distract them without giving out who she really was. Rogue was in hiding. It had to stay that way: concealed with the help of Mystique's powers behind the Asian features of a young woman.  
  
She hissed in displeasure as she decided to run from their shots. She had to take them away from where Gambit was operating.  
  
#Gambit? Soon finished?# she asked the thief threw her mental connection.  
  
#Soon dere...#  
  
The bullets ceased raining upon the running Rogue.  
  
Rogue turned around to yell at them. "Finally undertud that ya're beaten?" she asked, a smirk on her face. However, she secretly tightened her shield: she wanted to get out of here alive preferably.  
  
Rogue was limited in her power using: she couldn't allowed getting identified by the hidden cameras... The "Boss" would kill her for it. Rogue was having a hard time controlling her moods: she felt like creating an earthquake by stamping her foot, crushing them inside their own base, showing them what kind of mistake was pissing off a mutant.  
  
The crowd of soldiers suddenly parted to make place for a bazooka.  
  
"Shet..." Rogue mumbled to herself before sprinting away. ¤Blob, Ah need ya now if ya don't want mah body t' get turned int' a hot dog!¤ Rogue told him as she ran with all her might.  
  
¤Hot dog? Where?¤ the brotherhood mutant asked getting out of his reverie.  
  
¤Blob! Bring up ya powers! Kitty! Stop playing selfish!# Logan's healing factor wouldn't be enough this time.  
  
There was a hissing of the rocket launcher before the missile shot out. This wasn't the kind of rocket that you could jump over like in Mario, the plump Italian plumber gameboy thingy (Jamie's references). This high tech missile wouldn't miss. Rogue braced herself against the coming blow, hoping that Blob would be quick in action, just for this once.  
  
***  
  
-Logan, something is wrong with Rogue.-  
  
Logan's head snapped towards the screen at Cerebro's declaration. Rogue was still lying down, but her back was arched, cold sweat was running down her face.  
  
He didn't think twice: he jumped out of his chair exiting the office.  
  
Logan ran threw the corridors, down the stairs across the hall, the living room, entering the elevator to access the lower floors.  
  
He tapped his foot impatiently inside the cabin, torturing himself with questions on Rogue's condition. He should have never let her try session 55. Was she unconscious? Was she in pain? He should have guessed something had been amiss that first night Rogue had stayed when she'd returned. She'd looked frail, but her hard exterior had managed to hide it well, too well... Or were her voices trying to overtake over again.  
  
"Faster!" he groaned, hitting the inside of the elevator. Finally the doors opened, letting him out into the high-tech white corridor, leading him towards the Danger room.  
  
Rogue was lying on the floor, not moving. Logan's heart clenched with fear at the sight of her pale face. Her forehead was scrunched up in pain, her fist clenched at her sides.  
  
"Stripes! Wake up!"  
  
Rogue was shook quite violently by Logan. Her head throbbed at the sudden movement.  
  
"No..." she muttered. She didn't want to go back into the nightmare. She wanted it to stay dark and cold... alone.  
  
But another shake made her open her green eyes. She peered up into Logan's face. Where had he come from?  
  
"Logan? Ya shouldn't be here," she whispered hoarsely. "He'll get ya..."  
  
"Stripes, ya losing it! Just look at me!" Logan was panicking: Rogue was acting very weirdly. It was as if she was alienating. Rogue was like a daughter to him, and seeing her in this state, her eyes rolling lightly back in her head, not managing to make coherent phrases, made him worry more than anything else.  
  
"He'll get ya... use ya..."  
  
Logan lifted Rogue in a sitting position, her head rolled backwards. He was quick to tilt it towards her chest. He put his hand to her forehead, she was warm, way too warm. Sweat was beading down the side of her face, her hair was matted against her neck. And her eyes... they would roll around, not focusing.  
  
"Kid, get a grip. Ya're in the Danger Room..."  
  
"Did you accomplish the mission? Am Ah that badly hurt?" She kept glancing to her right, looking off into space.  
  
"Look at me, Stripes," Logan told her taking her face in his hand. "Ya overdone yaself real good, ya know?"  
  
She started to shake terribly. "Make it stop..." she cried out. "Gambit! What have you done to meh?"  
  
Invisible to Logan, Gambit stood next to him, his face stern. Remy looked pained to see Rogue this way, flinching lightly at her flying accusations.  
  
"Remy kept his word, he made chere remember..."  
  
"Ya tricked meh! Ya were meant to show how t' use mah powers."  
  
"Remy showed ya by makin' chere remember what she lost. What did chere expect?"  
  
"Ah don't 'want' t' remember!" she finally confessed.  
  
"Gambit make sure chere remembers, den," Remy said before disappearing, satisfied with Rogue's last words.  
  
************************  
  
oh!!!!! hope this chapter didn't wipe you out on the way to understanding.... *feeling nervous... What counts is that you understand what Remy psyche is up to. I inserted a Logan 'moment' to show you what Rogue looks like on the outside.  
  
Ok, first thing first: I got a bit troubled about was the Giddy resemblance... I know Giddy too well not to wipe the comparison away. True, this is Romy fic, there is Sinister inside it, and Gambit is in Rogue's head! Ouch... Is it a mere coincidence? Maybe not, Giddy is a fantastic X- men (evolution) fanficion, and I've followed it since nearly the beginning, and I'm still following it with Love of my life... I might have got influenced by it... who knows? Seven Sunningdale's absorption theory is very good. However, mine follows other lines, my psyches have all they mental abilities, they are complete "people", I imagined that they could evolve (like here: voices to whole pictures). And for the touch thing, tell you now, it's not by forcing Rogue's will on them, or making her psyches happy that she'll be able to touch... Here she'd just make them happy to not get bugged to much. I used another, lets say, 'technique', something psychological, I suppose.  
  
RemyLover: you're totally right, Remy is toying with Rogue's mind. Proof in this chapter.  
  
Snitter in Rivendell: Wouah! Love the compliments! I hope some of your questions are answered with the big paragraph just above.  
  
Sarah-Crysala: Don't worry, real Gambit will be coming up. But will Rogue manage to make the difference?  
  
Winter fire: if you tell me your speculations, I might just slip some hints in the author notes... *winks.  
  
Panther Nesmith: totally right! I prefer the real Remy, something, let's say, more solid? At least Rogue could show off with real Remy because the others would see him. But I don't think it's really Rogue's kind to show off. (I'm just wishing it was me... sigh)  
  
Weeble Wobble chic: it was a bit long to update... but this chapter is longer!  
  
Ishandahalf: Glad you're pleased! Confess that I'd like a remy for myself too!  
  
Unknown source: Yeah, I know it 'kind' of resembles Giddy... Like I said higher up.... But Remy's soon going to have a new psyche companion!  
  
Well! Chapter 9 all ready, and (real) Remy is making himself rather discreet. I'll have to see about that! *grins! REVIEW PLEASE!!!!!!!! 


	10. Worried friends and whispering lover

Logan watched as Rogue slept in a spare bedroom. He hadn't had the heart to take her in the med-bay, that place always made him uncomfortable.  
  
After have applied wet flannels on her forehead and making her eat some soup, she'd finally found some sleep. Logan wished that Ororo and Charles could come back earlier than planned. The kid needed some serious help. It was even worse than Logan had thought: she must have been sprouting her psyches powers when she fought in the Danger Room.  
  
Logan peeled his gloves off he'd used to tend to Rogue. He wished he'd just let her absorb him to heal her, but he was frightened it'd make her more disoriented than she already was. He tried to reassure himself: she was resting now.  
  
With last look in the room, and the security camera in the far corner, Logan left. The other kids would soon be back and he had to make sure they didn't put up any trouble or destruction. Rogue would be fine, he'd hear if she cried out. Plus, he needed to talk to Kitty and Kurt, they ought to know to keep an eye on Rogue, for her own safety.  
  
Rogue stirred lightly in her sleep, strands of her hair falling in front of her face as she rolled over on the bed. A small frown rested on her forehead, and her thick lashes would, once in a while, tremble.  
  
She wanted to open her eyes, but it was impossible. Exhaustion had finally claimed her, and she now had no more control over her body. Sleep would have easily taken her, but she refused.  
  
***  
  
Logan, Kitty and Kurt sat around the kitchen table. The blue demon and the young woman would glance at each other, wondering what Logan had to do with them.  
  
"Ze green paint ze other day wazn't meh," Kurt finally broke the silence.  
  
To the teenager's surprise, Logan didn't comment, he was deep in thought.  
  
"Is everything, like, okay?" He didn't respond. "Mr Logan?" Kitty called.  
  
"Yeah, half pint..." he started. "I mean no," he quickly corrected. He looked up, his face grave. "I have something to ask you."  
  
Silence followed for a long moment, Logan was wondering how to say this.  
  
"I want ya to be extra careful with Rogue."  
  
"Why? Is something wrong?"  
  
"What'z ze matter with mein sister?"  
  
"I think Stripes is having problems with her voices again," he explained resting his palms against the surface of the table. "I'm not sure what's up with her, I think she just needs to focus on her surroundings, and not... in her head."  
  
"I don't underztand."  
  
"What you mean, is, like, she mustn't listen to her 'voices'?" Kitty asked tentatively. The freshman about understood what was happening to Rogue. But the Goth had said that she'd manage to control them... Rogue wouldn't lie to her, to Kitty. Surely. They were friends after all.  
  
"Yeah, that about sums it up," Logan said nodding slightly. He wasn't sure he even understood what he was saying. "I just don't want her to be left on her own to long..."  
  
"I don't really now what it iz," Kurt said, worry showing clearly in his yellow eyes. "But I will do everyzing if it makez Rogue better."  
  
"That's the spirit, Kids."  
  
***  
  
While Logan, Kitty and Kurt talked lower down in the Mansion, Rogue was having trouble making coherent thoughts. At least Gambit was quiet.  
  
She was trying to examine what she'd seen previously, what was meant to be a memory. Had she been in some military base? They were sure a lot of soldiers. What had Gambit been doing? Probably thieving. But what? Had she been working for...Sinister?  
  
The last thought made her shiver. Sinister. She'd never seen him, never talked to him. But she knew, deep down, that it was all because of him. Anger rose in Rogue. It was frustrating, knowing... but not remembering. But then again, did she want to know? She could continue her life as usual, like if nothing had happened. Put everything behind...  
  
Rogue sniffed, there was a faint smell of burnt. She lightly panicked; trying to force her eyes open, but, as before, they stayed tightly shut.  
  
And what if she was being attacked by some of Sinister's cronies? She knew they were some; like the woman who'd come to recruit her, then there had been Gambit... Or was he still alive, still working for the mad scientist? She shivered again, not liking where her thoughts were taking her. Or was it just the cold?  
  
"Chere has goosebumps..."  
  
"Stay out, Swamp Rat," Rogue croaked  
  
"D' ya wont Remy to make dat sore throat better?" The meaning was obvious in his husky voice.  
  
"Stay out, ya perv," Rogue said more forcefully.  
  
"Chere looks like an angel when ya leave ya make-up out," he continued, ignoring her threats.  
  
Rogue felt the covers being lifted back over her shoulders. Her mind reeled. Gambit was intangible! He couldn't move objects! Psyche Remy couldn't. So who was this?  
  
Rogue opened her brilliant green eyes, her heart beating faster in her chest. He looked exactly like his psyche, or nearly: the scar on the far right side of his cheek seemed larger, his forehead more worn. He smiled anyhow and his red on black eyes shined brighter than Rogue had ever seen.  
  
"Hey," he simply said crouching down next to the bed to look at Rogue directly in the eye. He brought his hand up, stroking Rogue's hair behind her ear. He didn't have his gloves on... What did this mean.  
  
Rogue was incapable of moving, just like when she'd been caught by the strange mutant Death. Words were lost to her.  
  
"Ya look surprised, chere. Remy told ya he'd come back. Were de words lost to ya that night?"  
  
'That night'... Which night was he talking about? Before Sinister? In the month she'd been away?  
  
"Can.. can chere remember now?" he asked.  
  
The conversation slowly came back to Rogue. It was 'that night'. The first night she'd been back... Nevertheless, she'd thought that had been psyche Remy! Had it been psyche Remy? She'd struck him, he'd bled... She observed him attentively. Yes, there on the left side of his forehead was a faint bruise, nearly completely gone...  
  
Rogue slowly shook her head. No, it wasn't possible... Gambit could touch her... She could touch?  
  
"It'll come back..."  
  
It was the weirdest moment in Rogue's life. Gambit sat there, next to her, stroking her hair with a longing expression, whereas Rogue's mind was reeling. She hardly knew him, this was madness!  
  
The faint touch of his fingers against her cheek as he brought a lock of white hair behind her ear repeatedly soothed her lightly. It rather felt good. It wasn't really touching, Rogue wanted to make sure this was real.  
  
With a big effort, she brought her hand up, capturing his in her own pale bare one. The inside of his fingers was rather rough, but pleasant. And Rogue waited for the pulling to start... They stared at each other, waiting for the other to make the first move. It never came.  
  
Rogue wanted to cry. She'd lost what had been stopping her from having a normal life, but then again, she just wanted to knock Gambit out cold right now...  
  
All of Rogue's troubles, fatigue left her all together as she pulled Gambit closer. Correction, this was the weirdest moment: she suddenly had the urge to touch him more. It was a kind of teen-ager phantasm, but she'd been denied it since her mutation had manifested and she now wanted to catch up everything she'd missed. She kissed him, he kissed her: let's say they kissed.  
  
***  
  
Logan walked back down the corridor towards the room he'd left Rogue in. He just wanted to make sure she was all right.  
  
Then he caught the faint smell of burnt, coming from... Logan stopped in tracks, sniffing his surroundings. He took a step forwards, and then he realised it came from Rogue's room.  
  
Logan rushed down and pushed the door to her room roughly open. He panted, his heart beating franticly.  
  
Rogue was still asleep. Her face was now turned the other way: she must have turned around. The window was still closed, the curtains still drown. However, he didn't miss the camera. The small bit of high tech in the room, suspended in the far corner was fuming, destroyed. The whole room smelt of it, covering even Rogue's usually strange scent. He opened the window slightly, letting the fumes go out.  
  
Logan looked suspiciously out of the window, searching for any smell or footprint in sight. It was already getting dark, and rain was not long to come: he wouldn't find anything. He looked back inside, watching Rogue. Had she blown up the camera? Whatever it was, a mystery was in the air, and when it came to Wolverine, it never stayed secret for long.  
  
***  
  
Short chapter, I know...... Well, I've finally brought back real Gambit... What the hell is going on between Rogue and Remy? Rather weird, huh? Naughty Rogue, she's using him... Or is he using her? Tutt tutt, to many questions (I'm actually asking them myself! To tell you the truth, I'm kinda wadding in my own story, it didn't turn out how I'd originally planned it! Took a sharp turn right somewhere...)  
  
Snitter in Rivendell : another looooong review! Just like them! Yeah, probably next chapter, she's going to wonder if she can 'really touch' and that means trying... but who? Anyone you want? I haven't really decided yet.  
  
Sarah-Crysala: :D ! Did I do well on the action? Well, kinda of action... it's just not what I do best...  
  
Yumiko: Sugar and spice... watching? Is it a cartoon, film? Because I've been wondering where the websites get their sound tracks of Rogue and Remy... Do you know?  
  
Winter fire: best chapter yet? Hope i'll manage to do even better....  
  
Ishandahalf, just a question like that, does your name mean anything special? I hope Remy/Rogue 'bonding' didn't weird you out!  
  
Panther Nesmeth: Wait for when Rogue manages to contact her psyches again, that will be cool! Imagine all she can do!!!  
  
Weeble wobble chic: update is here! (short, yeah... *sighs... got school and all... pretty long to update for such a short chapter...  
  
Well, what do you think? REVIEW!!!! 


	11. That human freak

Rogue crossed her arms stubbornly in the back of the car. How had she been tricked into going to the mall? When Kitty was driving! How did she manage to get her driver's license in the first place? Kitty was a public danger behind a steering wheel; everyone in his or her right mind could see it!  
  
Kitty (who was driving dangerously) and Kurt both sat in the front of the small car. They talked about everything and nothing. Kitty would lift her hands dramatically off the steering wheel to accompany her words, making the car seer too sharply to Rogue's taste. Talking about taste, Rogue was now feeling rather sick.  
  
"Remy feelin' not too good eithe'..." psyche Gambit said sitting by her side. Of course, he would be having the after effects of Rogue's discomfort. "Tell Kitty Cat to slow down..."  
  
Rogue did nothing of it, savouring the feeling of her psyche knowing what pain she had to go threw sometimes. Gambit could now feel physically... She smirked.  
  
"Chere is evil," he glared at her, furrowing his brows.  
  
He disappeared, sulking in some dark corner of Rogue's mind.  
  
And then she thought about the previous night... She was having the usual ache and pains that came with working out too hard. However, it wasn't what was trotting on her mind. She didn't know if she should be ashamed or pleased. Kissing Gambit like that... Knowing she could now touch. Then why was she wearing her gloves? Good question. A small part of her brain whispered to her that it was fake, while the majority was cheering at the news.  
  
True-false-true-false... She just couldn't settle down. Or was it another trick of psyche Remy. When she'd asked him, he'd grinned at her.  
  
'Can't make the difference, chere?"  
  
For good measure, Rogue had punched him. Her hand had completely gone "threw" his head.  
  
"Now Ah can, Swamp Rat," she'd replied, dusting her hands.  
  
"Remy can make chere feel lahke anything else," he'd told her grabbing her fist. Rogue could feel warmth of 'what was meant to be touch'. It was a weird sensation, but it was nothing like she'd felt the night before. Rogue was positive that last night was real... Or was it feke... She'd looked up at him, anger in her eyes.  
  
"Try and stop meh from doing this, then." Accompanying her words she'd punched him with her fist again, bringing up her knee into his groin. It was as she'd thought: both hits passed completely threw him. Remy was just a picture set before her eyes, intangible. Then how could he control her body heat?  
  
She'd dropped the question, she couldn't keep her mind on all of them.  
  
"Rogue! Are you, like, even listening to us?"  
  
"Just keep ya eyes on the road, Kitty," Rogue shot back.  
  
They finally arrived to the mall parking. Rogue jumped out breathing in deeply. She'd been quite close to sick up. Kurt was in the same situation, leaning against the next-door car.  
  
"I should hav teleported ya..." he mumbled to himself. He was wearing his image-inducer, looking completely human...  
  
"God, you're acting like I was the worse driver!" Kitty exclaimed dragging her two friends to the Mall's entrance after forgetting to lock her car. It didn't really matter, the 'thing' was old and already pretty battered, no one would come to steal it, much less approach it with any thieving interest.  
  
"Rogue, ya just need some new clothes! Yours, like, look too small! That was last summer's fashion! Now it's long sleeves and..."  
  
Rogue didn't really protest when she was pushed into a clothes shop. True, her clothes were a bit too small: she was starting to feel squashed in her trousers, they were too tight around her waist, and she was just about suffocating in her own usual body T-shirts. Passing threw the entrance of 'Colours of Light' ("what a lousy name," Rogue thought). However, what got Rogue's attention was the woman behind the counter. Her sharp blue eyes followed the two girls, and then fell on Kurt. She sneered in disgust and picked up the telephone on her desk.  
  
Kitty was unchanged from the woman's stare; Rogue was driven into the changing rooms with tones of clothes.  
  
"Kitty! Ah wear black, if ya can remembe'!"  
  
In the small changing room, Rogue looked down onto a red top. It was somewhat pretty. She then looked up into the mirror, watching her reflection again. Was it possible that she looked more 'lively' than a couple of days ago? She had a bit more colour in the cheeks, if you called colour a maybe less whiter colour... She could touch, could she really? Maybe she could change a little bit, maybe be a little more open... But she had to make sure...  
  
"Ah'm dreaming like a prep..."  
  
"Come o' chere, put it on!"  
  
She turned around towards Remy, cramped in the cabin. She'd nearly forgotten about 'him', psyche wise. He was wearing this sly grin, waiting not so patiently against the wall.  
  
"Disappear before Ah find out how t' get rid of ya, Swamp Rat," Rogue threatened scowling dangerously at him. Remy shrugged his shoulders.  
  
"Got t' have som' fun som' way..." he said before disappearing.  
  
Rogue dropped the red top and picked up a black one instead from the pile of clothes that Kitty had deposited.  
  
She put it on... Rogue's eyes went wide as she looked up again into the mirror.  
  
"My o my... If this ain't..."  
  
It was sleeveless, and without her make-up or her gloves, she looked, not pale, but just porcelain white in this black outfit. The collar line went excessively low: Logan would have had a fit if he'd seen Rogue in it. It clung to each curve, waist and bust included...  
  
Remy psyche decided to whistle in her head. Rogue blushed and would have taken it off straight away if Kitty hadn't phased threw the curtain.  
  
"How's it, like, doing..." Her words trailed off, her jaw dropping in astonishment.  
  
"Can Ah, 'like' have a bit o' privacy?" Rogue shot back, pushing Kitty back out by the shoulders.  
  
"I don't care, you're getting it!" Kitty called from outside.  
  
"Yeah, yeah..." Rogue mumbled. However, she had her hands on her hips, admiring her reflection.  
  
"Of course, Logan would, like, kill you. But he doesn't like, need to know."  
  
Rogue felt kinda attractive, the way her hair would fall seductively over her eyes. Without realising, the corner of her lips curled up. Rogue groaned, this just had to stop.  
  
"Swamp Rat, keep ya thoughts t' ya self," Rogue hissed. She could hear him chuckle. Lance psyche used to react the same way at Kitty. It was filthy...  
  
"...but if he finds out, I"ll be having more Danger Room sessions, this is still, like, his money..." Kitty trailed off on her own, not realising that Rogue wasn't exactly listening. However, the Goth caught the last words.  
  
"What ya mean, 'his' moneh'," Rogue asked opening the curtain this time to face Kitty. The freshman jumped in surprise at Rogue's sudden appearance. Logan never lent money, even less for some adolescent to buy clothes. The Wolverine was way out of character.  
  
"Well, you now, like, how he's getting soft on you..." Kitty tried to explain.  
  
There was the piercing noise of stilettos against the floor. Rogue saw the shop-keeper coming from afar, and Rogue knew straight away that she wouldn't like this person. The woman had her chin in the air, a permanent scowl on her forehead, her lips pressed in a thin line. You could read on her tag: "Gladis". However, it wasn't only the air of haughtiness from the person, but her cold blue eyes that showed no compassion that prevented Rogue from getting any information from Kitty. Rogue wondered if the woman ever smiled. "Gladis" emitted a small cough, trying to get the attention of the two adolescents.  
  
Rogue glared at her. "Got a bad cough, shugah?" Couldn't the woman see that they were in the middle of a conversation in the first place?  
  
"I'm sorry," she mumbled shaking her head lightly as if evaluating them. The cold eyes would slide to Kitty, then to Rogue. "But, you see. This shop is, forbidden to... people like you." She had a snob accent.  
  
This was too much for Rogue. The Goth got out of the cabin, straightening up to her full high in front of the shopkeeper.  
  
"Rogue, it's all right.. We'll just leave..." Kitty said humbly tugging at Rogue's black top. Rogue jerked away.  
  
"Ah have a problem with 'missus'," Rogue growled at the woman. "With 'Gladis',"  
  
The woman took a step back, not wanting to get too close to the two mutants. Rogue was now looking positively dangerous: her green eyes flashing.  
  
"Who are forbidden?" Rogue inquired, her fists clenched.  
  
"Rogue... Come on..." Kitty pleaded. She was getting worried, Rogue was 'too' uncovered to get angry. She might do something she'd regret later.  
  
"Filthy Mutants," she said in one go. It was worse than simple ignorance, it was pure hatred. The woman was reeling of it, and Rogue didn't need Logan to feel it. "Your friend... She went threw the curtain... I'm sorry, but there is certain rules here, and I must..."  
  
"Well," Rogue started, lifting her bare index to point at the woman's face. "Ah don't give a damn. Mah friends goes threw curtains? Guess what Ah do!"  
  
"Rogue!" Kitty exclaimed. "Don't!" The freshman had been about to grab Rogue's arm, but remembered at the last moment that it was bare, and pulled back unwillingly.  
  
"Nah, Ah can do bettah without mah power! Lahke taking one of ya ridicule shoes and stuffin' it up where it hurts an' the sun don't shine!" Rogue was now yelling. She might have overdone it, but this woman was making Rogue crawl with disgust.  
  
The woman huffed, her pride wounded and started to yell herself.  
  
"Excuse me, but I wasn't so rude!" the woman shook her own finger at Rogue. Gladis's black hair was escaping her neat bun at each shake of her arm. It could have been a comical situation, where this girl and older woman yell at each other dramatically. However the subject of dispute made the scene gain it's worse reality: discrimination.  
  
The people around were soon drawn out of the changing rooms; their heads peeping out from behind the curtains, looking perplex. Kurt walked over from the entrance to join Kitty, asking what was happening.  
  
"Kurt! Do something! She's going to blow up!" Kitty exclaimed biting her nails in worry.  
  
Kurt cringed at another flying insult from Rogue, and decided to act on instinct. He grabbed his two friends, Rogue by her top, Kitty by her arm and... just simply teleported out of the situation.  
  
The three friends found themselves back in the parking lot, next to Kitty's car. There was a cry of surprise from some shopper who ran away in fright.  
  
Rogue was furious. She hit the side of the car cursing, and then turned towards her brother.  
  
"What did ya think ya were doing?" she yelled at Kurt at the top of her lungs, her green eyes were now flashing at him.  
  
"Mein sister, since ya left, thinzs have changed lightly..." Kurt cowardly tried to explain his act. It wasn't his kind, but Rogue was looking menacing enough.  
  
"No! How dare ya! Runnin' away lahke that! It's exaactly whaat they want! Run aaway in som' hole of ouars!" Rogue cried out, her accent becoming heavier. She was feeling disparate, and a familiar headache was coming back.  
  
Couldn't they see? This was just the beginning. What would it be next? It could go from some unmeaning comments from humans, to refusing medical care for mutants. It was madness. Rogue stomped away again towards the mall.  
  
"Rogue! Like, what are you doing?" Kitty called running after her friend once more.  
  
"'Clear things up ah little...'" Rogue said, her words dripping with sarcasm. No way was this 'Gladis' going to get away with it. She was going to get a blast that was for sure.  
  
Something Rogue wasn't expecting had to come and ruin her plans of confrontation with Gladis. However, it might have been for the best in the end.  
  
Loud metallic crunches were heard approaching, and Rogue's head wiped around towards the racket.  
  
"This will do just fahne..."  
  
The profile of a Sentinel became visible between the cars.  
  
"Remy is all with ya, chere." Gambit's voice was ice.  
  
The immense robot stopped in it's tracks. Red orbs at the top of it's head rolled around, finally stopping on the three teenagers.  
  
"Mutant detection," an eletronic voice was emitted from the metallic shell which was the Sentinel. .  
  
***  
  
Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to see Cajun Spice!!!!!!!! I looked it up and found... a new episode of Romyness???? Why, ô Why is thee stuck in the Country were thou eat Frogs and Snails? Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!! Grhhhhh, if France 3 doesn't put it on soon I'll have a fit! (just like this one)  
  
However (puts hair back in ponytail and calms down) Reviews! You're the greatest!!! (CajunSpice.. Boohoohoo.... sniff snif) So sorry, the rominess was suddenly cut short, I'll catch it up in the next chapter. Where I'll probably be trying to write action (Aïe aïe aïe... )  
  
Panther Nesmith: OMG, I think you're right, Rogue can't remember any relationship, while Remy... No! Because it's going to go haywire! I'll make sure of it!  
  
Snitter in Rivendell: I was meant to make a "Finding the right touch", but it changed completely when I put in some freak human... Oops, I've just changed my story line completely again...  
  
DemonRogue13: ah...... You said it was a good chappie! Hops with joy* Hope this one will be to your expectations, but I'm sooo sorry, not much real remy here.  
  
ChaosCat: So glad you like it! True, I'm bringing up the psyche thing more than the touch... well, for the moment. X-men also give us this important message: discrimination can come in all shapes and sizes.  
  
Sarah-Crysala: I just hope next chapter's action is going to be ok, or I might just skip it to not ruin the story too much. I'm pretty basic with action: she hits him there, so he hits her there, because...  
  
Weeble Wobble Chic: This isn't updated too soon, but I might manage to get another one out by tomorrow night!  
  
Rogue Warrior Spirit: big brother huh? I've got the same problem with my sis.  
  
Ishandalf: Fake Remy-Real remy confusing? Oh dear, what am I going to do in the next chapter!  
  
Yumiko: Yeah, I just found out about Cajun Spice. (Grhh.) Can't wait for it to show up! Yeah, I'm pretty like that, any Romy is good enough for me!  
  
Just have to love the reviews (can you get addicted to it? Because I'm now officially a Reviewaholic!) Have you seen the Simpsons where Bart calls Moe again and............... (Shut me up) I could go on for ever!) 


	12. Mutants seen from the outside

"Is my hair fine? Do I shine?"  
  
"You're perfect. We can go... And action!"  
  
"Today, we have witnessed the worse of mutant kind. Around three o'clock this afternoon in the centre mall of Bayville, a shop-keeper, Mrs Gladis Grandshaw was violently attacked by a young mutant..."  
  
***  
  
Logan scratched his chin, looking at the tv screen.  
  
"Yes, it was horrible." The image of a disgruntle Mrs Grandshaw appeared. "She started spitting acid at me, yelling in a southern slang. We have enough juvenile delinquency as it is, but mutant delinquency! I dread what would have happened if I hadn't called the authorities. She had some kind skunk hair, brown and white. She shoplifted a 50 dollars top..."  
  
"She's spittin' lies!" Rogue yelled in anger at the screen. "Ah would have gotten mah way if..."  
  
"It's true, Mr Logan! It only, like, cost 5 dollars!"  
  
"Miss came an' told us t' clea'r off!  
  
"Becoze we ar mutants!"  
  
"De femme's mental! Had t' clean up her pants in de first place!" Remy added in Rogue's head. Of course, the others didn't hear him.  
  
Logan grunted. "It's not the point, Half Pint!" he bellowed. "Stripes!" he said turning to Rogue, looking very discontent. "Why didn't ya just knock the woman out?"  
  
"Mr Logan!" Jean cried out. "The woman was confused, it happens..."  
  
"Jean! 'BE' lucid!" Scott told his girlfriend rather, euh... un- gentlemanly. "The woman was nuts!"  
  
"Yeah, it happens t' call the friends o' humanity fo' party cleansin'!" Rogue blurted out.  
  
Meanwhile, the news was playing their screenshots of a teenager with two toned hair, fighting a giant robot...  
  
***  
  
It had been a peaceful day in the urban part of Bayville. As usual, cars would go about the streets; a couple of traffic jams, horn blowing at the delivery vans that stopped in the middle of the small streets... Normal.  
  
***  
  
"People would go to work. Work meaning means of money, and in some way, survival. It could be honourable, clandestine, just or unjust, people had kids to feed, interest to develop. Yes, it was survival; the brutal survival of animals evolved into something... more complicated, to match human standards.  
  
"Needs make humans adapt. They first stood up on two legs, then grew taller, lost most of their fur coat: it was physical adaptation. They made weapons and means to protect themselves, cook food, make their lives more comfortable with new tactics and manipulation of their pairs: mental adaptation.  
  
"The 20th century. Humans have again managed to adapt themselves to their time. Relations becoming more complicated, accumulation of stress and diverse emotions: to protect themselves better, from each other in the first place. And like before, they evolved this time into what we familiarly call 'mutants'. It's always about survival."  
  
***  
  
In the public parking of the mall in Bayville, there was a good example of what this mutation was about.  
  
Rogue ducked behind a car as the Sentinel fired a shot of plasma. The green glue struck the near by car, turning it over with it's intensity. The automobile crashed against the van it had been parked next to, making a security alarm go off.  
  
"Rogue! Let me take youz back!" Kurt called over the racket.  
  
Rogue didn't listen to him.  
  
"Gambit, show meh what ya can do," she told her Remy psyche.  
  
The metallic surface of the car's bonnet started to glow pink under Rogue's touch. The Goth jerked her hand away, running to safer cover as the car was ripped apart by the explosion.  
  
"Dat's enough fo' chere?" Remy asked.  
  
"Fahne with meh..."  
  
To protect, to survive.  
  
***  
  
"Stripes, ya still got some explaining to do, where did this power of yours come from?"  
  
Rogue shied away. It was going to be complicated to explain, when she didn't even know herself.  
  
"Just tell Wolvie dat ya absorbed someone on ya way back," Remy instructed.  
  
"Ah absorbed someon' not long ago..." Rogue complied.  
  
"Ya just had t'o kiss Remy..."  
  
"Ah just.... No! Ah got in a fight with an Acolyte," Rogue quickly corrected. "Ya soo dead, Swamp Rat," she added in her mind.  
  
She could hear Remy chucked. "Ya wound Remy, chere."  
  
Logan sceptically lifted an eyebrow. "Is that so? How much? Ya got quite a hand on the power."  
  
***  
  
"Like hands, you learn to use them, perfecting your control. Mutant powers are like hands, a part of the body. You can be deafened, blinded; it's the same with powers. You can put a blindfold to stop you from seeing, earplugs to stop listening. Of course, we haven't discovered how to 'blind' the powers yet..."  
  
***  
  
Rogue had managed to get at the Sentinel's feet and was busy charging two cars at the same time, crouched between them, her arms extended again each of it's doors. Hopefully it would make the statuesque robot fall over. Rogue retried back just in time, getting missed by another ball of plasma and torn apart by her own booby trap. The sentinel's foot crunched one of the charged cars and made it blow up. It was a mixture of chemical fog, flames licking the Sentinel's leg and the acrid smell o burnt. Th whole lot enflamed the near- by cars, it's fuel tanks exploding.  
  
It's foot was disintegrated, making it dangerously sway on it's last leg. However, such a ball of concentrated high tech couldn't be destroyed so easily.  
  
It feel to it's knees, or more lightly to it's 'joints'.  
  
Kitty and Kurt ha disappeared from view for some time now. Rogue didn't worry too much for them, they could easily go threw or disappear from any attack.  
  
"Mutant detection... course of action required..." the robot voice rang out over the parking.  
  
Rogue crouched behind a expensive porch, breathing heavily. The pain in her shoulders and legs from the activity of the previous day were now making her suffer. She rolled her shoulder around. She shouldn't have worked out so much.  
  
The sentinel wasn't too smart. It would just shoot it's green balls, too slow to get Rogue, that was for sure. It thought it was dealing with some normal mutant. Not too normal as we will discover.  
  
"Chere, put ya finger t' the car's lock," Remy ordered.  
  
Rogue pressed her index against the key's hole. There was a slight fuzz before it was illuminated with a soft glow: it fell away with the small kinetic charge.  
  
"Try an' opening it, chere." Remy psyche materialised next to her, he was grinning. "Know how t' drive?"  
  
"Nope," Rogue answered. "Ya think the guy that owns the porch mind if ah take it fo' a spin?" she asked him.  
  
"Remy's sure he wouldn't mind."  
  
Rogue swiftly opened the door and jumped in the driver's seat. The inside was made of leather and shiny wood. Rogue couldn't help regretting that she would soon turn the thing into a living torch. Rogue repeated the gesture, putting her finger against the ignition, starting the car with another charge. Gambit sat in the other seat.  
  
"Ready fo' ya first lesson?" Remy asked rather good-naturally, but his usual smirk quickly took it's place back on his charming face.  
  
***  
  
"A Sentinel, kind of police squad for mutants, came straight away after the desperate call of Mrs Grandshaw to neutralise the hysteric mutant..."  
  
"Hysteric!" Rogue yelled at the TV. "Ah'll give ya hysteric!"  
  
Kitty pulled Rogue by a gloved arm, restrained her friend from destroying the TV set.  
  
All the X-men, Jamie, the new recruit included had their eyes strained on the news. They had quieted down after have seen Rogue destroy one of the Sentinel's legs.  
  
A shot on a porch zooming between parked cars was retransmitted. It's tires screeched and fumed as it took a sharp turn, heading directly towards the Sentinel which was on it's knees from Rogue's last attack. The shiny racing car suddenly lighted up completely in a bright pink glow. A figure jumped out just before it collided with the robot's chest. The scene was hidden for an instant by roaring flames. It finally cleared away to reveal the Sentinel, or what was left from it, a gaping whole where it's chest was meant to be.  
  
The destroyed Sentinel was cut to the serious face of the blond reporter.  
  
"It was unfortunately not enough, submerged after twenty minutes by only one mutant. Authorities say themselves disgruntled and put the blame on human error. Mr Grulge from the technological department of RR1 explains this defeat..."  
  
The scowling face of a man in his forties appeared, replacing the reporter. A microphone was thrust before his face.  
  
"The mutant was considered as minor threat, therefore our 'Sentinel' as people like to call it, was programmed to just..."  
  
"That's enough," declared Logan turning the TV off. There were some of protests but they were shooed away, leaving Kurt, Kitty and Rogue alone with Logan.  
  
He looked at each in the eye, trying to discern their emotions. Kitty was ashamed, Kurt didn't feel comfortable, while Rogue stared at him squarely in the eyes. Her green ones showed everything except shame and discomfort.  
  
"If ah had t' do it again, Ah would," she declared.  
  
"I know, Stripes," Logan cut her off before she could add anything. "And I wouldn't have stopped ya, Kid"  
  
"Mein sister could have got killed!" Kurt protested, concerned with Rogue's safety.  
  
"Yes, or worse," Logan agreed nodding. "This might be against Chuck's beliefs, but ya couldn't leave like some frightened mutants."  
  
Kitty bit her lip. "Is this only the start?" she asked worriedly, her blue eyes rimmed with tears.  
  
"Probably." The truth was hard, but Logan had to say it. It made him sad to see Kitty look this way. "Ya can leave now."  
  
All three teen-agers got up and started exiting the room quietly.  
  
"Except ya, Stripes. Got a few words fo ya."  
  
Rogue sat back down, crossing her arms over her chest with a disgruntled expression. Rogue was sure that a nice little 'lecture' was going to come next on how she should act...  
  
"I'm proud of ya, Kid."  
  
Rogue looked up in amazement. Logan looked sincere enough, his dark eyes shining with emotions, a small smile on his face. Rogue had never seen him this way, so human...  
  
"I don't care what ya're hiding. But what ya did this afternoon, Stripes, defending ya pride like that. I respect." He acknowledged his words with a soft nod. "Just be careful..."  
  
"Course, Wolvie," Rogue told him with a relieved smile.  
  
She was about to leave again, getting up, when Logan un-expectantly grabbed Rogue in a bear hug. She could hardly breathe in his big arms. Rogue tentatively put her arms around him in a friendly manner.  
  
"Don't call me Wolvie," he grunted by her ear. He pulled away, letting Rogue finally leave. "By the way, ya're on the team again!" he called after her.  
  
"Great!" Logan heard her yell from afar.  
  
***  
  
"Survival, protection. These two words go together. Mutants have developed a quite original ways to do so. Three are three categories of 'powers': mental, physical, or simply work on reflex.  
  
"Let me explain myself: some develop a new way of communication, perception of mental waves. These waves can also be magnetic, or made by heat. Feeling them, understanding them, the brain manages to reproduce them, like speech in some ways. This generally comes from the development of the brain.  
  
"The second, physical, is the development of the general body. Some take the traits that could seem animalised. However, you must remember that we all have about the same genes as animals, but more numbered, assembled differently in a more complex way. One's heart can be bigger; it's the same idea. One can have better view, smell, body mass. Create a protective skin...  
  
"The third, strangely resembles reflexes. If some dust is stuck in your eye, it waters. This category of mutants, for example, could get shot, creating a chain reaction in the body to accelerate the healing process. It is tightly combined with the physical mutation, and most mutants posses it. It can go from 'six sense' to a more simple 'poisoned skin when in threat'. Like all reflexes, you can't control them.  
  
"I believe that there is a fourth category which combines all three genres. Mental, physical and reflex. I have heard of a mutant, once, who had empathic ability, could metamorphose his body, and under reflex in critic state where he would feel threatened, manage to simply make his adversary weaken.  
  
"And, of course, when we talk about protection, it's to give a better chance to survival.  
  
"And to finish this speech, I wish to put a word in about the discrimination of these new species that plagues our daily life. Instead of integrating these mutants who have created a new way of adapting to their environment, they are cast out, losing the precious aid they could give us. Mutants are what we will become. Humans will be soon left to the past. So lets look ahead, together."  
  
Hank McCoy finished his speech at stepped down from the platform. There was an unsure applause in the amphitheatre. The doctor adjusted his glasses upon his nose, hidden behind an image inducer.  
  
It was a long way for them to see the urgent reality of things.  
  
***  
  
So? What do you think?  
  
Popped up a complicated chapter... Trying to explain what Hank is doing meanwhile in his spare time, trying to explain what 'mutant' means to me. Complicated... Just tell me if you actually got something out! (looking worriedly... )  
  
And sorry, yumiko, no explaining yet. But promise promise in next chapter. Next chapter with Remy, real.. Must understand how Rogue gets confused by the two...  
  
ChaosCat: The sentinel was pretty lousy here, they weren't expected such a powerful attack from Rogue.  
  
Ishandallf: Did Rogue kick enough butt?  
  
Sarah-Crysala: Same here! (ducking under table waiting for the rotten bananas to fall...) Yeah, tried to make some more action here. But it's always a bit short...  
  
I'm a Angry Gumball: (original name!!!) is this update soon enough? About 24 four hours between.  
  
Well! Hasta LA Vista... (...baby.. sh...sh...sh..., any frenchies here who understand the joke and look at Canal +?) 


	13. Behind the scene

"Put quite an impression on Wolvie, chere," Remy psyche told Rogue as she closed the door to her room behind herself.  
  
Rogue didn't answer to Remy's remark. She pushed the papers and books at the end of her bed off onto the floor, clearing a space to sit down. She put her head in her hands.  
  
"Ah'm lying t' him an' he still trusts meh..." she mumbled guiltily.  
  
"Ah.. he was just impressed by chere, an Remy of cou'se, but Wolvie doesn't know Gambit's dere..."  
  
Rogue looked up at Remy. How could he do as if there was no problem? He was kind of stuck in a 'girl's body' who was about to go crazy and was soon going to have her period (meaning high stress and nervousness).  
  
There was a knock on the window. Rogue and Remy turned around to see... Gambit at the windowsill. Rogue looked between them, unsure how to react, she had one here, inside, with who she was busy talking to and... one in a real body, outside.  
  
Rogue lightly blushed remembering the previous night. She got up and opened the window. Gambit hoped down with a grin. Not waiting for Rogue's permission, he brought her close by pulling her by the waist, lowing his head to kiss her tenderly. Rogue did nothing to stop his hands wandering down her waist.  
  
"Hey," Rogue finally managed to greet him between two breaths. Psyche Gambit disappeared to her relief, this was weird enough.  
  
"Had fun, today, chere?" he asked smirking.  
  
"Not really..." she started.  
  
"Tutt, tutt. Don't lie t' Ol' Remy. Wasn't blowin' up a sentinel in an expensiv' car good 'nough fo' ya?" he asked with an innocent look.  
  
Rogue had to grin. It'd been 'his' idea in the first place. "Ya right, had loads of fun."  
  
"Remy follows de news, time t' time," he told her lowering his lips to her neck, kissing her flesh between his words. "Bucket head... is pretty happy, ...sayin' it... would show dem ... who was the strongest."  
  
"Ah was in this shop," Rogue told him enjoying the attention he was giving to her neck. "An' dis 'lady' with 'somethin' stuck up her ass' told us t' leave, becaus' she knew we were mutants..." Her voice was raised angrily on the last words.  
  
"Remy would have blown up de place," he said looking into her eyes once more. His face looked as worn as last time. "But chere got her vengeance," he added, a suspicious grin gracing his lips.  
  
He unwounded his arm from Rogue's waist, grabbing something that had been thrown on a shelf. He brought it up for Rogue to identify it.  
  
"Didn't know chere was in shoplifting!"  
  
"Ya..." Rogue didn't finish, snatching the black top away, stuffing it in the near by open draw. She'd been shown on TV with that precise top, looking terribly... "Sexy," Remy psyche had put it.  
  
He laughed, a clear joyful honey-dripping laugh. Rogue smiled warmly welcoming it, soothing the headache the propaganda news had given her earlier.  
  
His face became serious. "Remy knows chere can't remembe 'at all'." He stressed the two last words  
  
Rogue became cold, walking out of his embrace. She didn't dare look at him in the eyes...Why was the pleasure always so short?  
  
"Gambit has just been informed that ya escape wasn't as successful as planned..."  
  
Rogue listened attentively.  
  
"Sinister did it on purpose, wiping ya memories lahke dat... He doesn't want chere t' reveal t' de X-men where he put de base." Remy advanced, putting his hand under Rogue's chin, forcing her to look up at him. "He hasn't finished with ya, chere."  
  
"Remy," Rogue's voice was trembling. "What's the scar, down mah back?" She'd been dreading the truth, hiding from it. Rogue didn't really wanted to know, but she convinced herself that it might be less harsh if the truth came out of Remy...  
  
"Scar?" he asked confused.  
  
Rogue turned around from him. Breathing heavily, she lifted the back of her jumper up.  
  
There was no visible reaction from Gambit. He didn't say anything. He just stood there, watching the curve of Rogue's back, the tight but supple white skin defining her curves. It was flawless, a pale expanse of soft skin. However, in the middle was a scar. Like a ravine in the middle of a meadow, it soiled the view, descending her back from the top of her neck down, stopping only at the line of her trousers.  
  
Rogue was closing her eyes, keeping her breath in. This was shameful, undressing like this... Ok, it wasn't really undressing, but showing herself like that when she always tried to hide under layers of clothes...  
  
Rogue felt Remy's palm caressing her back; she shuddered underneath the touch. It slowly followed her spine down. His other hand joined the first one, seizing her just above the hips from both sides. His thumb gently massaged the skin, but retreated to explore higher up. His hands grazed her shoulder blades and finally tugged down the jumper Rogue had been holding up. She let out a sight of relief; first: covering up made her less self- conscious. Second: this was 'really' the true Remy, he was tangible and 'authentic'.  
  
"Ah promise dat Ah'll find out." Remy using 'I' was strange, but it re re- comforted Rogue, assuring her he would keep his word. "Just make a promise fo' Remy, chere. Run from him, dis tahme when he finds ya."  
  
Rogue turned around and got up on the tip her toes to kiss him; he was taller than her. She didn't know why, but he seemed genuine, trusting him probably more than she did anyone else (except Logan maybe). He responded to her lips quickly, biting her lower lip lightly, pinching it playfully.  
  
Rogue pulled away lightly. "How com' Ah can touch ya?"  
  
"Chere be blinded by lov'?" he asked with a knowing gleam in his blazing eyes. [giant hint!]  
  
Rogue sighted. "Can't mah lov' eve' be serious?" she asked, overdoing it dramatically on purpose.  
  
"Dis not be se'ious enough?" he asked. To prove his point he claimed her mouth once more.  
  
***  
  
The phone rang, Logan picked up.  
  
"Hya, Chuck. When ya're coming back down?" Logan had recognised the professor straight away by the way he breathed, or actually by the way he wheezed (he is an old man after all).  
  
"Tomorrow, Logan. I've seen the news. How is Rogue? I've seen the news. I hope you were not too rash on her punishment."  
  
"She's doing fine enough." Logan didn't really want to tell the old man his suspicious. Rogue was a good person over all, but all theses coincidences. "Ya know the report from Hank on the destroyed lab?"  
  
"Yes," the professor calmly replied.  
  
"Camera's caught the figure of a woman. She looked Asian and all, but... There were explosions, no? Before she was taken on tape: pink traces of kinetic power?"  
  
"I see where your thoughts are going, my dear friend, but don't you think it's rather too early to make any hasty conclusions?"  
  
"Rogue can use Gumbo's powers, ya know, the one with the trick card. An' got all the proof running on TV right now. Do you think she might be able to use her other powers?"  
  
There was silence on the other side. "I see, please continue."  
  
"Stripes couldn't have killed all those soldiers, of course. She's got some guts, but not that much..."  
  
"Logan, I prefer discussing this with you tomorrow, face to face with a warm cup of hot chocolate in hand," the professor told his friend.  
  
"'Course, Chuck. Tomorrow then."  
  
"Yes, good night Logan."  
  
"Good night t' ya, Chuck."  
  
The line went dead and Logan put the receiver back down.  
  
"Rogue..." he thought to himself. "I hope ya know what ya're doing, Kid."  
  
****  
  
Short chapter again, but quick update. This might clear up some confusion. The touch (hint that you'll understand if you've read last chapter), not the scar yet, but hey, HologramX, you're on your way to discovering! (of course I actually didn't know Remy had any implants, but a scientist like Sinister who respects the code of honour of villains just couldn't forget... It seemed obvious). It might have cleared up Logan a bit. He trusts Rogue, but he's still curious and would prefer clearing Rogue's name. "She couldn't have done it".  
  
Liked the romyness? Tried to ease the tension.  
  
Well the Reviews. Youah! Loved them!  
  
HologramX: feel free to correct anytime. Sorry the text sometimes gets odd, I just start thinking in french and it just flows from that...  
  
Rogue warrior Spirit: Update! Update! Update! Didn't think so soon, huh?  
  
Chaos Cat: Break stuff? Don't worry, Rogue will be doing plenty of that!  
  
Yumiko: have any of your questions been answered? Of course I didn't put everything in... I'm too evil for that! Grins*  
  
Ishandalf: hope you'll LOVE remy!!!! Isn't he sweet enough here? Grins even more*  
  
Winter Fire: do you think Remy is written well here? He has the annoying part Winter Fire: do you think Remy is written well here? He has the annoying part e he kind of makes fun of Rogue 'black top?' and of course he's still male... Makes rogue cheer up and can become all serious... Have I missed something?  
  
I'm an angry Gumball: Update! Soon enough? I was just so inspired tonight when I came home.  
  
Snitter in Rivendell: love your review as usual. Just another hint about what was going on in the 'month' exploding labs, normal they now send out sentinels in the open.  
  
Unknown Source: for the confusion of Kurt grabbing Rogue, I re updated the 11th chapter. Kurt, like, grabs her top and then teleports. And here that black top appears again... Sh... Naughty Gambit!  
  
Yeah! A fast update, don't you think it merits a review? 


	14. The fifth Queen: freedom

Gambit took a drag from his cigarette, his hair messy from the wind. He looked up to the sky, watching the clouds roll by against the soft hue of dawn. Another autumn day where it would rain again. He sighed, the smoke curling out of his mouth. Rogue never liked him smoking, so why did he continue? He dropped the stub to the floor. It sizzled as it was went out in the water puddle. He marched away, the end of his trench-coat lifting in the breeze.  
  
He'd laughed about it yesterday, but know, it worried him. Rogue had been played with by her emotions, and psyche Remy, who was in her head. He couldn't trust his psyche, he must have helped her blow up the Sentinel. Remy knew Rogue had him under the form of a psyche in her head. The Southern girl had explained a number of times what psyches were, and he could just see himself now letting her use his powers, for personal vengeance, or just out of boredom. Probably not out of boredom, who could get tired of being in Rogue's body 24 hours a day? He chuckled at the thought. No, there were more important things. Blowing up a Sentinel was like shooting a red flare saying: "I'm right here and functional!". Sinister would come and get her again. It'd already been quite hard to just get her out of the base, and again, Sinister might have just let her do so purposely.  
  
And the scar... What had he done? Seeing her body mutilated that way made Gambit want to kill that crazy scientist... But he couldn't, he was securely trapped in the web by his own will. In some sick way, Gambit still needed Sinister, and the scientist had made sure it stayed that way. A trap, a deadly one at that. He needed to brake free.  
  
Gambit shuffled his cards. If life was compared to a pack of cards, the cheating, the bluffing, the losing, the winning, it would always come down to luck. Remy knew about luck, he found himself rather lucky in fact. There was this problem though; it always left you when you most needed it. One good example of unluckiness was when he'd got his stupid powers and hadn't been able to control them. He'd turned everything he'd touched into exploding snap... Back to cards again...  
  
Remy had a couple of obsessions in his pocket: cards, his way with women and others. However, his newest obsession was Rogue.  
  
Gambit stopped shuffling, falling on the Queen of Hearts. Her serene face, her golden hair, her perfect manner, nothing like Rogue in fact, but it still reminded him of her. He put her back in the deck, shuffling again. He picked out another card, the Queen of Spades, now this was maybe more like her, dark, unexpected, the feared card in the pack. And still it wasn't quite that... He took another card out: Queen of Diamonds... Yes, she had a hard exterior, but nothing like the haughtiness that the woman on the card was showing.  
  
Gambit stopped shuffling, his ears noticing something. Someone familiar was approaching.  
  
"Remy be waiting fo' ya, Betsy," he said without turning around to make sure who it was.  
  
A woman, with purple hair walked out from the shadows. Her face was stern, her eyes flashing dangerously.  
  
"Keep formal, Gambit. Sinister has a job for you." Her British accent cut threw the air like a knife. "You've been messing things up enough, you're going to pay for it now."  
  
Gambit still didn't look up at her, he was busy looking threw his cards. Where was the Queen of Clubs?  
  
"Are you even listening?" she asked furiously.  
  
"Gambit's listening, go on." Seven of hearts, jack of diamonds, three of hearts...  
  
"Rogue's going to be framed for the lab's destruction, all you need to do is bring her out in the open and let the Sentinels take care of her. They already want her for the fight she put up yesterday..."  
  
Remy did look up at this. Did Sinister really think that the Sentinels would stop Rogue? She was with the X-men now; they'd keep her safe. Psylocke's Asian features were hard, the red tattoo over her left-hand side eye made her face seem severe. She was a Queen of Spades, more likely.  
  
"Sinister is aware of what you are up to, snuggling with the skunk..."  
  
Remy laughed at this, a clear laugh, not like the warm one he'd charred with Rogue, this one was mocking and rather cold. Yes, Gambit was under Sinister's orders, but when it came to Rogue, he was quite ready to 'fuck up' his life for her, and even this woman's life with his. They were good as dead anyway. Rogue had something he needed, and no way was he going to abandon her.  
  
"Psylocke, Remy's sorry."  
  
The woman stepped back; the fire in Remy's eyes was menacing, demoniac. His grin could have been the devil's own. Now she knew why Sinister didn't want to let this mutant go. She could see it there, in his red pupils, coursing with energy. She hadn't noticed it before, but now...  
  
***  
  
"Rogue, I'm so glad you've returned..."  
  
Professor Xavier sat at his desk, welcoming Rogue. However, she wasn't quite listening.  
  
Quick, packing things up, pushing them in the far corner of her mind, in the dark places of her head. He mustn't know. He mustn't. The small bits with Remy and what he'd made her remember were quickly hidden in imaginary files, put in a fictive safe. Rogue would have been out of breath if she'd had to do all this physically. However, she had a certain control on her mind, like a telepath, putting it into pictures, making walls spring out from her imagination to hide from the professor... Quick, he mustn't know. A last draw to close, a last door to lock...  
  
Rogue came out of her work, now ready to focus on the exterior. The professor could now look in her mind if he liked; everything was put in order. Remy would be quite, he'd promise her.  
  
"...been quite busy. Ororo and I have visited a school, just like ours, where the Headmistress, Emma Frost helps her students to control their abilities. Now, talking about control, I've heard that you've managed to succeed into controlling your psyches."  
  
Xavier smiled warmly at Rogue, a question asked in his blue eyes. His face was wrinkled by age, his skin covered with more or less deep crevasses. It reminded Rogue of Gambit's face, when she'd found him in the bank, it seemed so long ago. What would she look like herself when she came to the age of sixty, seventy years old? Would she still be alive?  
  
"Yeah, got the trick. Just managed t' shut them up a little," Rogue told him with a feigned sincerity.  
  
He nodded. "Good, good. Please tell me how you managed." It wasn't a question but a request, like if he had the utmost right to know. He did in a way, he'd worked with Rogue hours and hours to try and help her. She should tell him. Would he recognise a lie?  
  
"Ah... Ah talked with them, and made them disappear."  
  
The professor gave Rogue a strange look, as if he was weighting the truth of her words.  
  
"Yes, yes. Emma told me about this way, but I wasn't convinced."  
  
What was he talking about?  
  
"You worried us greatly, leaving like that. I'm happy that it came out for the best," Xavier said, wheeling out from his desk. "I've heard you've done some physical prowess with the Sentinel yesterday."  
  
Rogue just nodded; perplex that he was taking everything in so easily, much too easily. It made Rogue suspicious.  
  
"Then you might want to join the team again?" he asked with another soft smile as he came up next to Rogue in his wheel-chair. "I had ordered a new uniform for you, Rogue, just before you departed."  
  
"A neaw uniform?" Rogue asked rather curiously.  
  
"Yes, still in it's packet, right there on the dressing table," he told her pointing at the end of the room. There, on a Victorian dresser was a large metallic box with the address of the Institute showing on one of it's sides.  
  
Rogue got up to fetch it. To her surprise, it was very light and she had no difficulty lifting and taking it back to the bench where she'd been siting. It was like a Christmas present, given one month too early. Rogue kept a neutral face, but inside she was rather exited to know what it would look like.  
  
It wasn't quite what she was expecting, Rogue wearing black usually. It was green and yellow [think comic book] in synthetic material. Inside was also a belt. She lifted it up, a knife dangled in a sheaf at it's end with a small pouch.  
  
"With the newest technology, of course," Xavier added. "Nothing is made of metal."  
  
Rogue looked up at him; he had a knowing smile. Of course, nothing was made of metal in case she had to fight Magneto. Logan wasn't very well equipped by those standards, having knifes implanted in his body directly. Rogue looked closer at the blade and discovered that Xavier was right, it wasn't made of metal, it was light like a feather... Rogue then looked into the pouch and found a pair of glasses with dark lenses.  
  
"With an emitter and phone integrated, very useful."  
  
Rogue whistled in admiration. "Must hav' cost a fortune!" she exclaimed.  
  
"The Institute has special funds, Rogue. Don't worry about the cost. It's my affair," he told her. "And I believe you will find something more in the box."  
  
Rogue scooped the packet up from the floor where she'd let it fall. In the bottom were a pair of gloves in a plastic bag. She opened it and took them out, trying them on. They were black and the end of her finger tips were purposely bare, a neat hole made for her to be able to absorb who she touched.  
  
"Thanks," Rogue mumbled. Not sure how to act after have been given all the expensive equipment.  
  
"Not at all, Rogue," the Professor said, wheeling backwards lightly. "There is still two details I would like to go over with you." He put his hands in his lap, watching Rogue with a sincere face.  
  
"Did you absorb Gambit whole for you to use his powers? Magneto hasn't complained about any dead acolytes..."  
  
Rogue couldn't lie on this one, Remy was healthy, still running about, and coming to visit her... No, if she thought to much about it, Xavier would know. "Nah, jus' lightly."  
  
"I see..." he seemed to be in deep thought. "Does this mean that if you touch someone, you get his powers and can use them as much as you like?"  
  
Rogue didn't know how to answer this. "Ah, Ah think he lets meh use them." She cringed, the professor would guess straight away.  
  
"He? I thought you had made your psyches disappear."  
  
"They left, but Gambit doesn't want t' go." What kind of lousy excuse was she inventing? Why did she want to hide from him? Xavier had been very kind to let Rogue stay at the Institute, given all the necessary things... Trained, fed...  
  
"Does... does he bother you?" he asked worriedly. What the professor was really asking was: "Do you want me to take him out?"  
  
"No." It was a simple answer, truthful. Rogue didn't want him out.  
  
Xavier nodded slowly to himself. As if Rogue wasn't there anymore, he wheeled away, going back to his desk. He picked some papers up and put them away in his draw. Taking his pen, he started to write on a new peace of paper.  
  
"You can leave, Rogue. It was nice seeing you again." He gave her a smile before going back to his papers.  
  
Rogue got up to leave, but she then remembered Xavier's words. "What's the other thang ya wanted to talk about?"  
  
"I can't remember," he said thoughtfully. "Dear or dear," he chuckled his soft blue eyes twinkling. "I'm growing into an old man!"  
  
Rogue didn't say anything at this. She left, taking the metallic box after have stuffed everything back in it. It was always strange around the professor, and she didn't like it one bit. This was no exception.  
  
Shortly after, Logan came in quietly, walking up to the desk, his forehead creased with suspicion.  
  
"So, What did the Kid have to say, Chuck?" he asked.  
  
Xavier looked up, shuffling his papers together, giving Logan his full attention. "She doesn't want to tell me," he simply said.  
  
"Did you prod?" Logan didn't like it, but he wanted to know.  
  
"I tried to catch some superficial thoughts."  
  
Logan repeated the sentence in his head, trying to find some hidden meaning to the words. Chuck could be so cryptic sometimes. "Ya didn't get anything." Xavier nodded slightly. "And..." Logan tried to get the professor to tell more.  
  
"Ororo was impatient to see you again. I believe she's in the garden, trying to save her dear plants."  
  
Logan growled. Translation: "I prefer not telling you more. Ororo is in the garden."  
  
"As ya wish, Bub. But I'll find out anyway!" Logan yelled storming out of the office.  
  
***  
  
Remy sat in the couch, shuffling his cards again while St John laughed at the gag the TV had just shown.  
  
"Have t' see this, mate!" he yelled, trembling with laughter. "He's covered in cake."  
  
Remy would usually watch the program with Pyro, but he had heavier things on his mind. Remy wasn't the quiet one usually, it was more Peter's style, the Russian Acolyte, who was sitting at the other end of the couch, reading a book.  
  
The comical voices of the TV characters were starting to give Remy a headache. He would pick out a card, charge it, ready to blow the television up... then take the kinetic energy he'd put in the peace of slim cardboard back out. Blowing things up wouldn't help him.  
  
Remy was getting edgy, like an old man. He shuddered, it reminded him about his last encounter with Sinister's pet mutant, Death, quite unpleasant. How had the scientist managed to get such a powerful mutant under his control was a mystery.  
  
"Cheer up, mate!" Pyro exclaimed. "Ya look like ya going t' ya funeral!"  
  
Gambit chuckled. "Nah, not yet." St John had no idea what he was talking about, but he was close enough to the truth.  
  
The TV was displaying a Bimbo walking a small yappy dog. The small animal was barking at his mistress, frightening her. Gambit wondered how he watched such things. However, the scene was cut, replaced by a News Presenter, looking very formal.  
  
"The Sentinels, police squad for mutants, arrested a woman, causing trouble in the New York China Town earlier today. People were manifesting in the streets, worried about yesterday's event with the mutant who destroyed a Sentinel. Friends of Humanity directed manifestations in the streets...."  
  
Pictures of an unconscious mutant, with purple hair appeared. She was shackled and transported into a large van by men in black uniforms, their heads hidden behind helmets.  
  
A portrait of the woman was shown: she had piercing blue eyes, and a red tattoo down her left-hand side forehead and eye.  
  
"Pretty hot Sheila!"  
  
"Do you thi'nk Magneto wil' want uss too go and rrescue herr?" Peter had looked up from his book.  
  
Remy looked at the screen with suspicion. He'd thought he'd got read of her, less than three hours ago! How had she done it? He'd destroyed her!  
  
"Four civilians were killed, ten wounded by her attack. We have street cameras taping the scene before the Sentinels arrived..."  
  
The X-men would bail her out, or go rescue her. Psylocke would surely get a death penalty from the Judge, guilty or not, if she was brought to court. It was how things now went. The X-men, they would talk to her, the Asian woman would tell everything. And still... She might just keep her mouth shut, who knows, it might lead to Sinister... And putting Sinister in the guilty suspects' list wasn't healthy. However, he was sure he'd got rid of her. Psylocke had lost, had run out of luck. Gambit had won. Won what? A Southern Belle. Rogue had the key to his freedom, and no way was he going to lose her.  
  
However, the tables were turned, the rules changed. Sinister was playing with him again, testing Gambit's will to the extreme. Who had he exactly met earlier? Who had he strangled to Death?  
  
Then Rogue's portrait appeared on the screen, it wasn't exactly her face, but it described it well. "This mutant had already appeared some months ago, and revealed herself as very dangerous the previous day [...] has become the 15th most wanted criminal in New York..."  
  
"Hey, don't I know her?"  
  
Remy's fingers brushed the Queen of Clubs; he'd found the fourth Queen after all. He observed the card for a moment and finally decided that this didn't look like Rogue. She was more like the fifth Queen of the deck. His Queen.  
  
"Remy's too lucky fo' his own good sometime'," Gambit though to himself. However, luck always has a downfall, and Remy knew that it wasn't going to last long with Sinister in the game.  
  
***  
  
Tada!!!! Chapter uploaded!!!! About 2820 words. Liked the bit with Gambit? He's good, he's evil, all yours to decide.  
  
Loved the Reviews! As usual!!!!  
  
Weeble Wobble Chic: Don't die! Here it is! 14th chapter! Have a feast!  
  
Winter fire: an obsessed, rather evil Remy is portrayed here. But you'll see his good side soon! The one rogue's just gotta love!  
  
Unknown Source: yep, Rogue was under Psylocke's form when she remembered. Do you see the plot coming? Rogue having to tell what she really done to save Psylocke, or just going to save her on her own... Which will she use? But Psylocke isn't so innocent anyway...  
  
Snitter in Rivendell: sorry, cut of the sweet moments for some evil twisted scenes!  
  
Hologram X: one down for Remy on the good side, but he'll catch up, got plenty of chapters to come up for him to do so!  
  
Cassie-bear01: kicking ass? Yeah! She will!!!!!  
  
Ishandahalf: Authorities? What are they going to do, They're usually rather corrupt. And rogue, wanted criminal? Pretty tough!  
  
Lupine Draconis: new reader? Yeah!  
  
Rogue Warrior Spirit: discovered why Rogue can touch Gambit (hint, blinded, put a little note...)? 'Authorities' are going to want to know how you can blind mutant's powers for their own reasons, and probably in more painful ways... (it's not going to be just a 'blindfold', but to compare, let's say, as painful as tearing eyes out. Ouch! Mutants aren't going to like that one bit)  
  
Well, I'm off to bed, got school tomorrow, completely tired out!! Make a girl happy and REVIEW! Will ya? *puppy eyes! 


	15. Darker Waters

Rogue didn't dare glance to her left, her breaths trembled slightly. She blinked a couple of times quickly, trying to regain her calm. Was it the make-up which was pricking her eyes? No, the emotion, probably.  
  
Gambit sat just next to her, in the professor's office. Scott, Jean, Kitty, Kurt, the Adults, Magneto and his Acolytes were there too. Scott had his back rigid, uncomfortable with the 'supposed' enemy. Kurt would glance around, his tail wrapped around the foot of the chair. Logan looked as he was busy sniffing the hair, in his corner, while Ororo observed the crowd with her hawk like presence. No one was feeling comfortable. Pyro was busy flicking his lighter shut, open, shut, with an annoying click click click. Colossus was stoic, trying to act normally with the knowing presence of the smaller Kitty Pride by his side. This was the first official reunion between the X-men and Acolytes; however, the Brotherhood was strangely absent.  
  
The Professor was peaking... speaking of what already? She didn't see these people around her, she only felt Gambit by her side, his warmth and the hand that had rested on her back. No one else noticed the exchange. They were both seated at the back.  
  
Was he playing with her? His fingers would roam on the small of her back, exploring. She shuddered with... pleasure?  
  
Her eyes were strained on what was in front of her, her mind on the person she was sitting next to.  
  
"A mutant was arrested yesterday," the professor was telling, by Magneto's side. One was impressive, both together, they looked invincible. "I know nothing of her yet, and I intend to visit her in her cell before her judgement in Court..." Was it only an impression?  
  
Rogue grabbed his hand behind her back and dared to glance at his face. He caught her gaze just a second before she turned away again. Remy's red on black eyes burnt away with lust. A faint smirk graced his lips. Remy's fingers tugged at the glove covering Rogue's hand, pulling it slowly off. She let him do so.  
  
"I intend to make her sentence fare..."  
  
The glove slipped off. His hand was so warm. Rogue welcomed it; his thumb stroked her pale fingers.  
  
"For I have my own suspicions she has something to do with the terrorist attacks on the R.U.N Laboratory this past month."  
  
Rogue's ears picked up the last word with worry and nearly forgot Gambit next to her. Remy seemed to have frozen too.  
  
"The surveillance cameras taped her clearly, and it seems we've found the mutant who is responsible for the massacre of the Laboratory's guards, and her associate."  
  
Gambit's hand went cold. Rogue looked towards him, worriedly. Had this anything to do with the memories Remy psyche had given her back? He had been in them, in body, she was sure.  
  
[[[[She used Gambit's power the make the exterior of the barricade flare up in pink... All the cameras and sentinels would see... A young woman with purple hair swung her brilliant pink knives at her attackers, she wore a nasty smirk on her face, and a red tattoo over her left eye. Who could have guessed that Rogue was hiding in the woman? ]]]]  
  
[[[She would be the distraction while Gambit did his own thieving...]]]  
  
"Ya right, chere," Remy psyche told her without appearing. "They saw chere, under anothe' form with Mystique's powe's, ya used Gambit's powe's and dey have suspicions now on the 'Swamp Rat', an' chere now."  
  
Rogue didn't like his tone of voice, accusing. She shuddered, she could use Gambit's powers too, they all knew now. They would think she was the 'associate', or that it had been Remy.  
  
Rogue had no alibi, she'd been 'away' somewhere... if Remy did have one, Rogue would be accused. If he didn't have any, the Professor would favour Rogue more than Gambit. It was confusing. Only one thing was worth knowing: Remy and Rogue were on the suspects' list, with the purple haired woman.  
  
"We'll see about the accomplice later, when I'll have more information on the subject with Hank's undercover work..."  
  
[[[["McCoy left two weeks ago," ... "job in a big lab."]]]]  
  
Most pieces of the puzzle were getting together. However, there was still a big hole in the picture for Rogue, a hole that had lasted one month.  
  
Rogue hadn't realised that most of the students had got up to leave. Gambit wasn't in the next-door chair anymore. She looked around, searching for him, but he was absent from the scene. Kitty walked over to her friend, a weak smile on her face.  
  
"You, like, all right, Rogue? You look paler than usual."  
  
"Fahne' Rogue snapped. She was no mood for this kind of friendly manner. She was in a trap, the professor must have looked in her mind the previous day. He would have found out with the cameras anyway. The woman with the purple hair... The captured mutant was just the form Rogue had used to not be recognised. Then, how did Rogue know the woman in the first place? If only she could get her hands on Gambit, and make him tell her everything. She wouldn't let him distract her with his caresses, she'd get the truth.  
  
"Rogue," the professor called. Rogue walked over to his desk. Magneto was standing next to him.  
  
"Yeah," Rogue said, trying to not look angry, betrayed, hurt.  
  
"I'm sorry to announce," the professor said, looking genuinely concerned. "but you won't be able to leave the Mansion, much less go out in the gardens too much. You've been put up as a wanted criminal in all the police stations."  
  
"Ah'm what?" This was the best. She! A criminal!  
  
Magneto furrowed his brows. How Rogue hated the man: he'd been the main cause of all their troubles. And he was there, standing like if nothing had happened: the destruction of the Key's guardian, kidnapping her and her fellow X-men to Asteroid M, because of him, they'd been captured and put in Area51. The list went on and on. Who was he joking?  
  
"Destroying one of their Sentinels will only make them more eager to catch you, child" Magnus said.  
  
"For your own safety, Rogue," the Professor added.  
  
"Yeah, don't get ya pants in a twist, sheila, should be pretty proud!" Rogue glared at St John. He gave her a warm smile matching his brilliant hair. How had she kept up with him in her head?  
  
"What'ver." Rogue stormed out of the office.  
  
Logan followed her with his gaze. The Kid was a bit too edgy. What had got into to her? He could smell her faintly in the crowd. Confusion, anger. Not a good combination.  
  
Rogue didn't really look where she was heading, too many things on her mind.  
  
"Swamp Rat! Tell meh what's this about!" she asked her psyche. He didn't answer.  
  
"Don't ya start turning awa' from meh!" she yelled at him. Without realising, she'd marched out into the garden, not noticing the menacing clouds ready to pour down in rain.  
  
"Oka', chere. Remy tell ya what dis is about."  
  
Rogue sighed, sitting down on a bench, trying not to get caught in the brambles growing there.  
  
"G' 'head."  
  
***  
  
There was a hissing of the rocket launcher before the missile shot out. This wasn't the kind of rocket that you could jump over like in Mario, the plump Italian plumber gameboy thingy (Jamie's references). This high tech missile wouldn't miss. Rogue braced herself against the coming blow, hoping that Blob would be quick in action, just for this once.  
  
And for once, Blob was on time. The blow threw Rogue several feet in the air, crashing in the far end of the corridor, making the wall crumble.  
  
Rogue groaned in pain as she lifted herself from the rubble. Except for her heavy pain in the stomach where the rocket had caught her, she was feeling... surprisingly whole. Her clothes were brunt, ripped... To her relief, she hadn't lost her hold on Mystique's power, she still looked like the Asian woman.  
  
The soldiers, at the other end of the corridor were starting to worry. They had just used a bazooka and still hadn't managed to keep the enemy down. As for Rogue, she was feeling very, very angry.  
  
First of all, Kitty hadn't phased her. What was the girl thinking? This was no game. If Rogue got hurt, the freshman would disappear with her, like all the other psyches. Rogue didn't even thank the Blob for his prowess. Kitty hadn't obeyed her, Rogue hadn't had the control.  
  
Rogue laughed, the soldiers quieted down. It was a mocking, cynical laugh.  
  
"Bravo," she declared, starting to clap her hands. "Thought just for a moment that I was good as dead!" Her accent had completely disappeared.  
  
Before any could act, Rogue had shot red laser beams towards the cameras, smouldering them into sizzling blobs of melted plastic and mettle. She had the full reins now. Most of her psyches were angry; they would help her get their revenge.  
  
"We can have a little fun now..."  
  
"No!" Kitty psyche yelled as Rogue brought her foot down, stamping the ground. It cracked, opening into a shaft, quickly advancing towards the soldiers who were starting to panic. Some were engulfed under the earth. Rogue, under the purple haired woman's disguise started multiplying at each of her steps. The faint kinetic energy of her foot as it pressed against the floor made another Rogue.  
  
"Jamie! Don't! Please!" Kitty whined. "She's out of her mind! She's going to massacre them! They can't fight Rogue!"  
  
On each Rogue appeared a metallic armour, clicking quickly into place.  
  
"Peter! You don't want this!"  
  
The real Rogue stepped back, watching her creation: an army of herself. The soldier's wouldn't stand a chance against her. She was the strongest, and they were about to learn what losing meant.  
  
"Kitty, you shouldn't have..." Rogue started. "I had already warned you."  
  
"No! Rogue! Come back! This isn't you! Please! Stop it! I'm, like your friend. Remember! Rogue!" Kitty psyche suddenly became silent. She was gone.  
  
***  
  
Rogue's eyes snapped opened. What had she done? Had it really been her? She... she was a monster! Tears were rolling down her cheeks, her bright green eyes were pallid.  
  
Flashes of blood, the pained yells of the guards came back to her, their eyes, their lifeless eyes opened, looking out on something they couldn't see anymore... What had she done? And Xavier thought it was that... that captured mutant! It was all Rogue's fault... They got the wrong person! No wonder Hank had gone. They had to find the person responsible for this. And it was her, Rogue. She wasn't a criminal. She was worse than that!  
  
"Oh gwad... what have Ah done?"  
  
She'd been worrying about Gambit, when she should have been worrying about herself. Who was she? Gambit, he'd just been touching her, touching a filthy murderess.  
  
Rogue looked about. There were no one about in the gardens, she was alone... She couldn't stay here, it was suffocating. She wouldn't be able to look in the other student's eyes. And Logan! He respected her!  
  
"Oh mah gwad..." She couldn't stay. Suffocating. And Kitty. Poor Kitty! She was a monster.  
  
She wanted Psyche Gambit to say something, anything. She felt so alone. Just the sound of his voice would give her the sense 'this'. "Remy?" she called. "Are ya still there?" No answer.  
  
An enormous lump seemed to have grown in Rogue's throat as she got up and ran away. She wasn't worth anyone. She was the traitor, always the traitor. 'They' would be better off without her.  
  
Gambit stood at the door of the living room, just outside. He saw Rogue get up, caught the flash of tears. What was the matter with her? He'd come out to find her, he had explanations to give. Where was Rogue running to?  
  
Gambit followed her threw the garden, she didn't realise that he was behind her.  
  
Rogue entered the woods with quick steps, drying her tears with the back of her hands with these words running threw her mind: "worthless, traitor, monster." How she hated herself, despised who she was. She'd tried so hard to not resemble her mother, but they were just the same, acting selfishly. If only she hadn't excepted.  
  
The smiling face of Kitty came back to her. That smiling face she'd wiped clean from her mind without second thought. Rogue's psyches were people, they talked, thought and would have acted the same way as normal if they hadn't been stuck in a same body, all together. She'd been their cell, she was Remy psyche's cell. Where were they all now? Had she all wiped them out?  
  
Rogue wasn't crying anymore, but her face still held the traces. Her mascara had run, her eyes were puffy and red, her cheeks lightly pink from the emotions. It was this way Gambit found her, under the trees.  
  
Rogue looked up at him with big green eyes, looking totally lost, confused.  
  
"Remy? Is it r'ally ya?"  
  
"It be Gambit, chere," he said softly, approaching her carefully.  
  
She stepped back. "Remy? What am Ah?" Her expression was pleading. "Ah did somethin' terrible..."  
  
"We all do terrible thin's sometim's."  
  
"Ya don't understand..." she shook her head, walking away.  
  
Remy caught her by the arm. She jumped away from his grip, as if burnt. "Don't touch meh. Ah'm a monster... Ah killed them... in cold blood."  
  
Gambit didn't take in to her warnings, pulling her to him, fitting her body in his arms. Rogue knew, she remembered something. It wasn't her fault. Sinister had been controlling her. She was taking all the blame. Remy knew very well what she was going threw. The terrible self-loathing, the guilt plaguing the mind. It was the second time Remy was trying to re-comfort Rogue after that terrible night, the first time had been wiped from her memory.  
  
"Sh, chere. Remy knows what ya mean... Wasn't ya fault. Ya didn't purposely do it."  
  
"Ah did it... Ah did it..." she kept repeating. "Xavier knows... Ah'm sure."  
  
Gambit held her more tightly, raining kisses on her forehead. "Don't worry 'bout it. What will come will come..."  
  
Rogue wrapped her arms around his body, searching that special warmth that had seemed to soothe her. Yes, it was still there. Rogue started to calm down. Gambit wiped the black that had run under her eyes with his thumb.  
  
"Liv' in de present, chere. See 'bout the future later."  
  
Rogue shocked in her sobs. "Don't try an' be philosophic, Swamp Rat. It's like trying t' make Pyro look serious."  
  
Remy chuckled, the Rogue was back. "Jus' be ready t' run, when need be..." The words failed him as he looked down upon Rogue. She was still a bit teary eyed, but was quickly composing herself again. This was the person who had stolen his heart. Rogue had hurt, been hurt but still held her head high over the water, trying to swim back to shore, what ever it took.  
  
****  
  
15th chapter all ready? God, I'm getting there.... Very teary eyed chapter for rogue. So you now know what Rogue had been doing, not too good huh? Xavier might turn his back to her after have been so good to her. Rogue is treading on dangerous ground, might crumble beneath her steps... I'm not sure where this is heading. The story has already taken some unexpected turns...  
  
Webble Wobble chic: double serving! I, like, redone this chapter 3 times, and I'm still not really satisfied!  
  
Winter Fire: Is Rogue's tortured moment well done?  
  
Rogue Worrier Spirit: Implant... interesting. To tell you the truth, I'm not too sure myself... Implant... good, good.  
  
Ishandahalf: yeah? Uber remy? And it's only starting. Just wait for them to be stranded in the same place more than five minutes... No! No that kind! (Talking to Myself, such a perv (yeah, i have split personalities too...)) I mean like looong conversations. Yeah right, it's not like they really have conversation on the mind.  
  
Aviatrix: (Scratches head), got a bit low on the psyches lately... Must add some more in Rogue's head. Shake thing a little bit up!  
  
Sarah-Crysala: I'm not sure either how they're going to deal with it. But I've started by keeping Rogue to the house (from which she will eventually go out, to fed up of being locked up!)  
  
Lupine Draconis: Loving? I've just gotta lov this reviews... sighs with pleasure...  
  
By the way, I do have a life outside of this, a boyfriend to pet, friends to talk to, and school to see too. But, something unexpected happened (ok, a bit expected.) called HOLYDAYS!!!!! Which means more time at home, means more time on the computer, which means more chapters sooner, better constructed! Yeah!  
  
Meanwhile, why don't you REVIEW!! 


	16. Simple desire for love

Simple desire for love  
  
Mary hummed a nursery rhyme to herself as she played with her doll, Suzy. Dress her, undress her, put the doll's hair into a plat, undo it, Mary could play for hours like that, on her own.  
  
It wasn't Mary's fault that she was alone most of the time, but because of her mutation. She couldn't really converse, play or do anything with the other kids her age when she was half invisible, permanently. It was a strange thing, really, Mary was six, just a kid, or squirt as Mr Logan liked calling her, and her mutation had already manifested.  
  
She was sitting in the corridor, making her doll walk to the bathroom, the print of the wall-paper showing threw her when Rogue walked quickly past Mary without noticing the young mutant's presence.  
  
The older mutant looked menacing enough, with her piercing green gaze, but Mary didn't mind it. She found Rogue's make-up fun and just wished her doll had the same white skin. Rogue was on her own most of the time too, Mary had noticed. Rogue was also one of the most weirdest mutant in the Mansion, just after the fuzzy blue elf with a tail.  
  
"Just shut up, will ya?" Rogue snapped. Mary quickly looked about. There was no one around, and she hadn't talked at all.  
  
The Goth entered her bedroom. Mary got up, forgetting about her doll and put her ear to Rogue's door.  
  
"What can Ah do?" Mary heard clearly threw the door. "It's all mah fault." Rogue was speaking to herself again. She'd heard the other mutants talk about it between themselves. Was it right to speak about Rogue without her being there?  
  
"Suzy!" Mary cried out, seeing her doll sprawled on the floor. "You're going to get your hair all messy..." she mumbled to herself as she combed Suzy's hair with her fingers.  
  
There were footsteps from down the corridor. Mary looked up and saw the demon boy approaching.  
  
"Hey, p'tite," he said crouching next to the smaller mutant. He had a strange accent and black and red eyes. He'd been staying for two days now at the Institute with his orange haired friend and the giant. She liked him. Mary forgot about her poor doll again, transfixed by the older boy's presence.  
  
"Have ya seen Roguey 'bout, chere?" he asked with a warm smile.  
  
"She went in her room," Mary replied. "She's talking to herself."  
  
"Ah, Remy thinks she would lik' t'o speak t' Gambit..."  
  
Mary scowled in thought. "Who's Remy and Gambit?" she asked innocently.  
  
The boy chuckled, his eyes blazing in a warm fire. He ruffled Mary's hair before getting back up. "Got t' stop Roguey from breakin' anythin'," he said before leaving, entering Rogue's room.  
  
Mary looked back down at her doll.  
  
"Mary had a little lamb..." she chanted to herself. She liked nursery rhymes, her mother used to sing them to her.  
  
***  
  
Rogue kicked her draw angrily, leaving a mark on the wood. What could she do? What should she do? Someone was going to die, accused of something Rogue had done.  
  
Remy slipped into the room. He looked about and noticed the papers thrown on the floor, the covers messed up in a ball and Rogue with her arms crossed.  
  
"Ouch, has Remy come in a bad ti'm?" he asked.  
  
Rogue sighed, turning around to face him. "Remy, Ah can't stand it anymor'."  
  
Remy approached her, trying to seduce her into his arms.  
  
"Remy, no," Rogue said, escaping his embrace. Each time she tried to speak seriously with him, she would find herself kissing him in the end, after have forgot what she'd wanted to speak about in the first place. "This can't be seen t' lahke this."  
  
Rogue sat instead on her bed, bringing her knees about to be able to put her arms around her legs, in a protective manner. "Ah stay in here anymor'. Ah'm going crazy!"  
  
Rogue was taking confines very badly. It was nearly a week she'd been back and hadn't been able to really go outside and have a good walk. It was frustrating for her, plus the matters of a certain mutant in jail who was going to get executed at Rogue's place...  
  
Remy sat down beside her, and reasonable distance to not get hit if Rogue suddenly decided to change her mind and knock him out.  
  
"Talkin' 'bout craziness. De p'tit translucent gi'l is in de corridor playin'. She saw chere pass talkin' t' de air."  
  
"Mary?" Rogue's hard expression softened lightly, but quickly hardened up again. "Can't stand the newbies..."  
  
"Yeah, Remy thinks dat's her name. How come she got de mutation so early?" Many asked the same question. Only Jamie had got his mutation that early, well, he'd got it at birth... But that's another story. The manifestation of one's mutation only surfaces in period of big stress, like adolescence... However, Mary was under ten... What had made her power come up so early? Only the adults knew.  
  
"That's not the question," Rogue said angrily. "Ah don't care 'bout Mary. Ah have bigge' problems. Lahke the one 'bout meh being a criminal and on the suspect list. Most of all, tell meh 'bout Psylocke."  
  
It was Remy's turn to sigh, but he hid it well. He personally didn't want Psylocke out...  
  
"De femme was recruited 'bout three months 'go by Sinister. Remy heard she got a problem with her 'new' body. What eve' dat means..."  
  
Rogue frowned. Remy was trying to hide something.  
  
Gambit tugged at Rogue's senses with his empathic abilities, trying to make her relax more, make her open up to him... It was for her own good. He didn't want her to worry herself constantly.  
  
***  
  
Mary skipped down the corridor and stairs, still with her doll. She entered the living room. There was a group of students looking at a horror film. Mary didn't like those films, the others had noticed that she would become a bit more transparent when frightened...  
  
Rain was tapping against the veranda door. It was about ten at night, and a horror film wasn't something for a six year's old.  
  
Mary wasn't looking at the screen. Jubilee screeched at some part the film, clinging to Bobby for comfort, burrowing her head in his jumper, then would reappear blushing and with a funny remark. Ray, the boy with the strange hair-cut laughed out-loud, but then jumped at another passage of the scary movie.  
  
"Squirt, ya should be in bed," someone growled from behind Mary.  
  
Th little girl jumped and turned around, facing Mr Logan. He looked menacing enough, with an unlit cigar at the corner of his mouth and an utmost frustrated expression on his gruff face.  
  
"David, Louise and Jamie aren't!" She looked over at the second couch, where they were sitting, crushed between Pyro who was transfixed by the film, and Kitty who was hiding her eyes behind her hands.  
  
"It iss all rright, Mrr Logan," Colossus said getting up from a chair he'd put next to the TV to watch the film. "I willl put herr to bed," he declared.  
  
Mary crossed her arms and tried to glare like Rogue as the Russian giant picked her up and put on her his shoulders.  
  
Mary stuck out her tongue at Logan just before they left the room, thinking he wouldn't see her.  
  
"Kids," Logan grumbled to himself sitting back down in the armchair facing the veranda. Mary was now the youngest of mutants. All the residents of the Institute had their own story, but some were sadder than others. He picked up his book and was about to start reading again when he smelt something odd. He tried to stay calm, telling himself he was hallucinating. However, the smell didn't linger on and was cut from his nostrils. Logan settled back in the confines of his armchair, chewing on the stub of his unlit cigar. He took a small pleasure from the Kids who were scaring themselves with an unrealistic horror film. He chuckled to himself. "Kids."  
  
***  
  
"Remy, gotta talk..."  
  
Rogue, meanwhile, was having hard time discussing with Gambit, as his mouth was always in the way. Well, Rogue wasn't doing much effort at stopping him either.  
  
Her hands started roaming underneath his T-shirt, wanting to feel him closer, while Rogue's shirt was already half unbuttoned. His breath against her face, against her neck was making her go crazy. His soft touch over her belly, her cheek. The list could go on and on.  
  
While Gambit had been trying to soothe Rogue with his empathic abilities, neither of them knew that his own psyche inside Rogue was settling his own emotion traps over the couple...  
  
Rogue was well and truly one of Gambit's biggest obsessions now. The touch of her fingers against his abdomen only made him want more. Her rosy lips were as sweet as sugar-drops, except that in this case, he would never get sick of them. He could feel each of her curves, her body crushed under his on the mattress.  
  
"Goin' crazy..." they muttered both at the same time. Green met red and black, all doubts disappeared.  
  
"Kitty's goin' t' come back soon," Rogue said breathlessly.  
  
"Got Remy's room t' our disposition..."  
  
***  
  
The door at the far end of the corridor slammed shut. Colossus, still with Mary on his shoulders looked down and recognised the noise as being from his friend's room, Gambit. Rogue and him must have got on each other's nerves again.  
  
The mutant Rogue, with the two toned hair, despised Gambit. She didn't miss any occasion at throwing a mocking remark on his behalf. Gambit had picked the game up, and since then, they were like dog and cat, at each other's throats. However, Colossus thought something missed from their little quarrelling matches. It was more like bickering, not as worse than with the X-men field leader, Scott Summers, aka Cyclopes. There was no doubt there, Scott and Remy 'hated' each other. But with Rogue, it was like they both enjoyed it, somehow.  
  
Colossus or Piotr, looked up at Mary as she started humming to herself again.  
  
"What are you sinnging?" he asked curiously.  
  
"Mary had a little lamb," she replied meekly, clutching her doll. Sometimes, she would remind Piotr of his own sister, Ilyana...  
  
Piotr shook his head; he didn't know that song as he wasn't very familiar with English nursery rhymes.  
  
They finally arrived to the third floor, to the new recruit's bedrooms. Mary shared one with Louise, the little girl that coughed smoke up. Louise was always quite dirty, her hair and face mattered with soot... She was still down stairs with the others.  
  
Colossus put Mary back down on the ground. She yawned widely, stretching her arms before hopping into bed. Piotr made sure she was covered well, it being a bit cold at the moment with the approaching winter. It was strange, he could see the pillow threw the girl's head with the light spilling from the corridor. Piotr said good night to her, kissing Mary on the forehead. He left as the young girl's eyes closed.  
  
However, Mary wasn't quite asleep, and her eyes opened after the door was closed. She wanted her mum to come and sing a nursery rhyme to her, like before. When her mother had left, her father hadn't given much effort. She still had the red marks on her forearms from his belt the time she hadn't gone to sleep... She waited patiently like usual for her mother to appear. She was started to loose hope, so instead, she sang to herself.  
  
"Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow? "  
  
She was cut off by the faint tapping at her window. Mary sat up in bed, looking outside. There was a figure sitting on her windowsill. She jumped out of bed, put the light on and ran to the window to open it up.  
  
She'd been right. They had been someone. The someone in question was a young boy, looking very pale with a mop of back hair on his head. He smiled at her.  
  
"Hello Mary..."  
  
"Who are you?" she asked curiously, no fear in her eyes, as if a boy sitting on a windowsill in the middle of the night was something rather usual. Well, someone controlling fire in the Mansion was something usual to Mary.  
  
"Robin," he told her. "I know where your mother is..."  
  
"Really?" she asked excitedly. "Where is she? She's been gone for months!" The boy had captivated her attention.  
  
"I can find her and bring her back, if you want..."  
  
"Yes please! Yes please!"  
  
The boy's smile became wider, but no warmth touched his white cheeks. "I can teach you another nursery rhyme if you want..."  
  
"What about my mum?" Mary asked crossing her arms again; she just wanted her mum back, nothing else.  
  
"It's your mum that taught me it in the first place."  
  
Mary's suspicion disappeared. "What is it?" The boy told her to approach. He bent down from the windowsill, whispering the nursery rhyme in Mary's ear when she was close enough.  
  
"Here comes the chopper, to chop off your head," he said coldly. His menacing voice was lost to Mary, captivated by his words that were supposed to come from her mother. "Chop... chop...chop... chop the Old Man's head..." She wouldn't have guessed that she was facing Death.  
  
***  
  
Rogue snuggled deeper into Remy's arms. Her breath was ragged as if she'd ran for a mile without stopping. Gambit was breathing heavily, intoxicated by Rogue's smell.  
  
Never had she before... What had made her do it? She glanced at Remy's serene face, his chiselled chin, his high cheek bones, his heavy eyelids with rather thick lashes... His hands - his strong hands that made her tremble under their touch, the only touch she'd ever felt - came to stroke a strand of white hair away from in front of her green eyes, behind her ear. The answer was easy enough. What had she wanted to talk to him about already?  
  
Gambit held her tighter against him, frightened that she was just a dream. Gambit didn't understand, it had never been this way with the other women. With Rogue, he lost it, it was like if he'd become dependant of her. His fifth Queen... Her skin was so soft, so white, so pure. Remy sighed, he didn't want to leave Rogue. Gambit and the other Acolytes would soon be leaving for a new base, 'somewhere' in the States. He wouldn't be able to protect her, see her, touch her. He had to stay with her, she was the key to his freedom.  
  
They stayed that way for a long time in Gambit's room, without talking, enjoying each other's presence, simply. Trying to learn each other's forms by heart.  
  
***  
  
I'm on holiday!!!!! Yeah! Finished this chapter less than in three hours (yes, I write rather slowly....) quicker than usual.  
  
And I got Death back in the picture, if you recognised him with his creepy nursery rhyme. But wait a minute, he had the appearance of a kid... Why's that? Yes, it was Death, playing with poor little Mary...  
  
Anyway, don't worry, everything will be explained. Hmm... got Remy and Rogue a bit closer, without spitting the 3 letter word out starting with a S. This is a Pg13, and I won't allow myself to describe anymore, it implicit S**, and used only the word kiss once, and that was Colossus playing big brother with Mary.  
  
Others might wonder why I used the name Mary for the transparent mutant, it resembles Marie a bit too much. Hey, but is Marie Rogue's real name in the first place? Because the comic books never said, and Rogue might have been lying in the film, or did the parents call her that way in the beginning? Can't remember and I don't have the cassette, nor the dvd, damn... I you know anything precise on Rogue's name, tell me! Anyway, I used Mary because it fits in with all the nursery rhymes.  
  
Well, reviews...  
  
Unknown source: Interesting questions... If Rogue reabsorbs Kitty, I don't think psyche kitty would know, because they've become two different entities. Now, if Rogue reabsorbed Gambit, it would be like an update... I still need to figure out a bit. Poor Rogue, she's trying to deal with the Psylocke issue, but Gambit doesn't really want to help, does he?  
  
Weeble Wobble Chic: is this chapter up to your expectations? Of course, there's not only Romy, but I thought I should kind and put the new recruit into place before continuing, started with the little Mary. Like her?  
  
Winter fire: I'm blushing with all the good comments! What do you think about Mary's reaction, she's young, a bit naive, and lonely, missing her mother...  
  
Panther Nesmith: I'm glad you find it's not going the same way as Seven Sunningdale's fanfiction (read her last chapter? Kick ass!). This time, it's Rogue who is guilty and is going to run from 'justice', and not the other way around.  
  
Rogue Warrior Spirit: Really, tears? Ah.... Mary is in a pretty sad situation, inventing her nearly made me cry... But I haven't told you all her story yet... Is it clear enough that her father hit her? That her mother died? That's why she became transparent, trying to hide from him...  
  
Ishandahalf: More comfort for Rogue here! That's for sure! But he's going to leave! Oh no!!! Rogue won't like that! Neither does Remy, in fact.  
  
Sarah Crysala: I had left Death on the side of the road for a while, but he's coming back more evil than ever. He's going to get things interesting, and I'm going to make Rogue kick his deadly butt! There!  
  
Well, there we are... Now I gotta start thinking about the next chapter! Got any suggestions? I'm a bit lost in my own story... I'm thinking about writing about my original character, Death, in a separate story... How come Xavier knows him? How old is he? How come he's in league with Sinister? Well, a whole bunch of questions answered in an original way. But if start a knew story, I'll never finish this one! Oh dear! I've left my Angel crossover for months now, to write concrete road instead!  
  
Well, why don't you review... PLEASE? Pretty please, nice please, sugar please!!!!! Whatever please you want, I'll give! 


	17. Beautiful day

Beautiful day  
  
***  
  
Rogue blinked a few times against the harsh light of the morning sun pouring from the window. Rogue frowned, it was sunny, strange. She'd thought it had been raining the night before. Then something srtuck her; the window wasn't in the right angle, nor was the bed. Something was under her, something that was slowly moving up and down.  
  
It hadn't been a dream.  
  
Her arm was spread over his chest, her head resting on his own arm, his face so close to her own. The corner of lips were slightly curved up, and Rogue realised she was smiling too, or probably grinning. However, her joy disappeared instantly. What had she done? She closed her green eyes, trying to wake up from this dream, this wonderful comfortable dream.  
  
Remy stirred, his empathic abilities picking up a sudden change of feelings. He scowled slightly, where was it coming from? Something was over his chest, weighting on his arm. He tensed up and with a sudden jerk, pinned down the person that had been suspiciously close to him while he slept, their body firmly crushed down between his legs, his hands holding the person's arms down. His breath caught in his throat.  
  
He'd thought it had been some dream, trapped in the boundaries of his own thoughts, and desires... It had been unrealistic.  
  
"Rogue..." he whispered, huskily.  
  
"Remy..." What had she done?  
  
They looked at each other in the eyes... Remy thought he would not have taken her like that, roughly... Rogue, what would she think about the situation? It was her first time, and she probably wanted to hit her head against something. Gambit's gaze wandered down to inspect Rogue in the broad daylight, the expanse of her white skin of her chest, and the curves, he finally noticed.  
  
With an inhuman force, Rogue pushed him off, Remy tumbling off the bed with a loud and probably painful thud. He looked up at her, rather surprised. Rogue quickly grabbed the sheets around her, trying to hide from his gaze. However, Remy could see the bruises on her cheeks, neck, marking where he'd been...  
  
He got up to put his... euh... discarded boxers back on and sat on the bed. Rogue hadn't moved an inch, her eyes still as wide and shining, clutching the sheets to her chest, her back naked, showing the long scar drawn in her white flesh.  
  
"Can you do meh a favour?" she asked, not even looking at him. "Just don't talk t' meh raght now..."  
  
***  
  
Logan looked out of the window. How strange, the sun was shining, not very usual for an autumn day, nearing winter. Whatever, it was better this way. He'd ask Ororo if she had done something with the weather. It was a nice brake from the usual rain.  
  
He'd had a particular bad night. He'd woken up, for no reason at all. He'd listened for signs of roaming students. There was nothing. However, all night he'd felt unsure, uncomfortable, like if something was happening just under his nose and he wasn't noticing it. The acolytes hadn't been of any trouble yet... So what had it been?  
  
"Hey, Stormy," Logan greeted the weather goddess. "Ya got something to do with the great weather?" he asked.  
  
Ororo smiled warmly to her friend, pouring water in the kettle to then put it on the stove to make it boil.  
  
"Don't know, I might have fiddled with something while I was asleep. I sometimes do so when I have a nice dream," she told him cutting bread to put it in the toaster. "Can't say the weather displeases me," she added, walking up next to Logan too look out on the Mansion's grounds. He put an arm around her shoulders, sipping his coffee that he held in his other hand.  
  
"Lightens the mood..." Logan thought for a bit, this was the chance he'd been waiting for. "Ororo,' he started turning to Storm. "Would ya like to..."  
  
There was howling coming from the living room, and then a group of students erupted into the kitchen.  
  
Just by Bobby's happy mood, the temperature dropped lightly in the room. Jubilee was doing the most noise, however, laughing about... about something Pyro had said. The Acolyte was getting on pretty well with the children. Amara followed in after them.  
  
"What have ya done?" Logan growled.  
  
Their happy mood disappeared a little.  
  
"Just going into town today," said Jubilee.  
  
"Going shopping and stuff..."  
  
"You can go, but you need an adult to accompany you," Ororo told them sternly. "You mustn't get in any trouble, it was bad enough with Rogue last time..."  
  
Everyone in the kitchen turned to Storm, not believing their ears, Logan was no exception. "From where did that come up?" Bobby asked, looking rather worried.  
  
Logan sniffed the air, it smelled plot to him. The Kids might have been planning to do something else than shopping. He smirked.  
  
"I'll take ya, kids... It'll be fun..." His nose never failed him.  
  
All the children's expression saddened up, some a bit angry, except Pyro. His bright carrot hair was messy, and he was busy munching on the toast Ororo had put out for herself.  
  
"They're only four kids, it won't be a problem," Logan thought to himself.  
  
"That's nice of you, Logan," Ororo said, taking the rest of her toast out of the toaster, scowling lightly at the pyromaniac.  
  
Logan was already regretting his decision, he wanted to take Ororo out, not keep some brats in place and discover what they were up to.  
  
"Kitty... Jean and Scott would probably like to come, even if those two aren't on their own..." there were sniggers. That was three more brats. "If Kitty's coming, Piotr would come."  
  
"I'm sure Gambit would come," Pyro added, looking back at the toaster, disappointed to find it empty.  
  
"Sorry homme, Gambit not goin'."  
  
Remy walked into the kitchen, serving himself coffee. Logan heard the girls sigh, Jubilee overdoing it. The Cajun was in T-shirt and boxers, barefoot. He hair was dishevelled, falling in front of his demon eyes, like if he'd just got out of bed. However, he had a light smirk on his face, as if he was rather pleased about something. Now Logan wanted to stay at the Mansion, to make sure that "Gumbo" wouldn't get up to any mischief. He sniffed, the Acolyte was smelling something familiar, something he'd might have smelt the night before. What was it, already? He also smelt...  
  
...Rogue entered the kitchen next; making the place very crowded. She looked in a foul mood. Her hair was still dripping wet, her forehead crunched up in frustration. There was a moment of silence as she walked towards the fridge, all eyes on her. Rogue didn't notice anything, and the kids started chatting between themselves again.  
  
Remy watched her, his back propped against the counter, taking the view as she bent down to rummage threw the bottom part of the fridge... Just thinking about what had happened the night before (and this morning) made his smirk widen.  
  
Logan looked around; Ororo had disappeared from the kitchen, so he started to back away from the place.  
  
There was a sudden cry of surprise from Jubilee, as a bottle of milk dashed across the room, just missing her by inches, directed at Gambit. Logan smiled at the thought of the "Gumbo" covered with milk. However, to his disappointment, he caught it miraculously before it exploded against his head.  
  
Rogue was fuming, standing up next to the open fridge.  
  
Gambit looked at the bottle, like if it had just been handed over to him normally. "Just what Remy needed, thanks chere," he declared pouring the milk in his coffee, and putting the bottle down on the counter.  
  
Logan chuckled, exiting the kitchen. Gambit didn't know what he was getting into by maddening Rogue. The Goth must have already absorbed him, and would probably put her bare hand against his face for much longer than necessary if the Cajun continued. Logan wouldn't be the one to interfere.  
  
"Heard ya going into town, Ah'm coming with ya," Rogue declared slamming the fridge's door shut. "Anythin' t' get away of this Swamp Rat."  
  
"Sorry, Stripes," Logan said from the kitchen's door. "Until we get another image inducer for ya, ya can't go out of the grounds..." He could distinctively hear her teeth gritting, Logan wouldn't be surprised if he found Gambit unconscious when he came back.  
  
"Kurt can lend meh it..."  
  
"Nope, Fuzz Boy's on mission today, and I believe he's already left" Logan told her before finally getting out of the kitchen.  
  
"Mission?" Rogue ran out after Logan. "What ya mean a mission?" she asked him in the living room.  
  
"Stuff has changed since you've left, Stripes," he told Rogue without looking at her. Logan felt mildly sorry for her, she wouldn't be pleased to know on what kind of mission her brother was on.  
  
***  
  
Kurt sat calmly with the other people in the amphitheatre, looking about, trying not to seem too suspicious. With his image inducer on, he had his hair cropped, coloured black. He was a bit taller than he really was, and it just 'wasn't Kurt' when he wore a blue suit.  
  
This was serious stuff, he thought to himself, the X-men depended on him for this. He opened the dossier that had been placed in front of him. He looked threw the pages, it was just useless talk. However, he'd hear the important stuff soon.  
  
There was a lot of chatting around him. On Kurt's left side was a man in his forties with a thin moustache, well trimmed. He was looking lower-down, at the platform equipped with a long desk and microphones for each seat. Kurt had tried to speak with... R. Reynolds, Kurt read from the man's tag.  
  
The seat on Kurt's other side was empty, until a woman in a white suit, her blond hair put up in a tight bun came to sit there. Her cold blue eyes glanced at Kurt before she smiled rather warmly.  
  
"Kurt Wagner, pleasure to meet you," she said in a brisk voice. "Emma Frost," she presented herself. They shook hands.  
  
Kurt sighed in relief; he'd be fine now. This was the Professor's so called friend from Massachusetts, whom Xavier and Ororo had visited, not long ago. She was headmistress of school just like theirs, where mutants lived and were taught to control their powers.  
  
She picked up the file that had been deposited on the small desk in front of her.  
  
"It'll be interesting to hear the president of the Friends of Humanity. It will enlighten us on the troubles mutants cause us today," she said absently.  
  
Kurt slightly smiled, this was a mutant that was talking. "Yes, and the competence of these 'Sentinels'... They arrested a mutant criminal before yesterday, I believe." No one could have guessed that Kurt usually had an accent. It was completely wiped out. These new image inducers were very practical, they could not only disguise the physic, but the voice as well. "However, I was rather disgruntled to hear that one of these muties escaped a Sentinel's supervision and was, so forth, destroyed to a crumple of metal ."  
  
Kurt seemed to be a perfectly normal mutant hater in a blue business suit. Things had indeed changed.  
  
***  
  
Ok, it's been a while I've updated. All my fault! Yes, I am on holiday, and I have been working hard on this chapter. I've redone it at least five times! I nearly abandoned, I was so frustrated. There was one where Death made his big entrance in the institute, where Rogue was just trying to avoid Gambit and Logan, where Death came again and went directly to the Professor and they both had a conversation, where Xavier manages to enter Death's mind and speak with... Well, I suppose that will come up later. No version felt appropriate straight away, it was or boring, or had no sense (I was trying to squeeze Mary in, someway...) I just had to put up the base first of the story, and then construct over... Because this is actually the 'beginning' of the main story/plot!!!! Conclusion: this chapter was real tough and didn't come out how I had actually intended it to.  
  
Yes, and it's rather... short. But next chapter should be quite alright!  
  
I just hope I wont be trapped in my own plot! Because I'm really not sure where this is going anymore, worried it will get to big for me...  
  
Reviews, now...  
  
Rogue Warrior Spirit and Weeble Wobble Chic: UPDATE! Not to soon, though, oops, and not too much Romy... Aïe Aïe Aïe.... Don't throw any cabbage!  
  
Ishandahalf: Don't worry, Remy isn't going so soon, and wouldn't leave his Roguey behind!!! Ahhh...  
  
Lupine Draconis: Love the support Winks* Romy in big process! Wouldn't separate them for the world!! Would you know what Rogue's name really is? I've 'heard' Marvel has finally given her a name!  
  
Unknown Source: The first time I heard that nursery rhyme, it gave me the creeps... Yeah, nursery are usually have a hidden message. Like: Ring' a Ring' a roses, pocket full of posies, atishoo (however that is spelt out) atishoo, we all fall down. Talks about the plague. People used to keep smelling stuff on them (posies, roses) to not smell 'poorly', and when someone sneezed, it usually meant you'd caught the plague, and they would say 'Bless you' when you did, because you were soon going to die... And children still sing that kind of stuff. Very creepy indeed.  
  
Panther Nemsith: really? Mhhh... yeah true! About mutant kids having loads of problems, well... I'll try and fix it, make them seem a little normal for once and happy!  
  
Winter fire: Well, haven't put Mary in this chapter, don't even know if she's really disappeared or not! I haven't decided yet...  
  
Well, well... Better get working on next chapter! 


	18. Christmas hope

Shade of hope for X-mas. ***  
  
Kurt sat in the restaurant, Emma Frost by his side. They'd ordered some coffee and donuts. Kurt looked around, people here seemed to mind their own business. They were in the Amphitheatre's café, where most people had headed for the two hour's break.  
  
He took his donut and ate, slowly, something he didn't really do, but he had to watch his manners with Frost. Xavier had said she was quite a powerful telepath, and she also seemed to be to be a business woman. Her perfect manners, her aristocratic accent, her nails all trimmed the same size, exactly the same colour...  
  
"Could we get back to more pressing matters?" she asked in a clipped tone, her blue eyes flashing.  
  
Kurt blushed; she must have picked up on his thoughts.  
  
"Mmh..." Kurt swallowed before speaking. "Sorry."  
  
"Charles wants me to teach you some 'things'," she said sipping her coffee, her little finger in the air as she lifted the cup. "I was rather intrigued why he asked me to, I believe you have a very good teacher, that was highly involved in the Second World War... What's his name all ready? Wolverine."  
  
Kurt choked on a bite of donut. "Logan was in Second World War?"  
  
"You didn't know?" she asked, looking astonished. However, a knowing smile slipped threw her girlie mask.  
  
"I suspected something like that of Mr Logan," Kurt quickly said. How was he meant to be sure? It was not like he could go up to Logan and ask: "Hey, you've been fighting in zee last World Waar?"  
  
"Yes, of course..." She took another sip of her coffee. "I won't be any smoother that Wolverine on teaching," she said in an icy tone. "Promise me, Kurt, that I won't be wasting my time with you."  
  
Kurt gulped. When he'd thought he'd escaped Logan's hard training, he'd landed in something worse. Nevertheless, he was still here to learn. "I'll try my best," Kurt told her. He couldn't promise that he would be good and not waist her time.  
  
Frost smiled broadly. "Good, at least you have the good sense to not promise things so easily."  
  
She looked around slowly, seemed bored of the place. "We're surrounded by mutant haters," she said softly.  
  
"Are you sure?" Kurt asked, looking about too, less careful than his mentor. "How can you be sure they're all mutant haters?" He then glanced at Frost, and blushed. "I'm sorry, I forgot that you were a telepath..."  
  
Emma smiled widely, though, showing a row of pearly white teeth. "This is a good start. You are right, Kurt. They aren't all 'mutant haters'. The words are rather restricted. You must always remember that people aren't Good or Evil, white or black. There's always a shade of grey in between."  
  
Kurt smiled proudly. This was starting well...  
  
"Don't look so smug, people are going to notice," she said coldly.  
  
...Or nearly quite well.  
  
***  
  
The children grumbled. They were maybe outside, with beautiful weather, eating their sandwiches, but Logan was starting to get on their nerves, and they, on his.  
  
"I want some 'Mercy's Glitter!'" Jubilee whined.  
  
Logan growled. "What is Mercy's Glitter?"  
  
"It's make-up, and it's in the shop right over there!"  
  
Logan looked around, watching the pile of woman entering and exiting the place. The smell of perfumes came to his nose and he shuddered. He would have to keep his breath to survive that kind of place. "Can't you get in the supermarket? Or the nearby store?" he asked.  
  
"Mr Logan! You don't go and buy those kind of things in a supermarket!" Kitty piped in.  
  
"I saw some in there, Kid. Just get it there," he replied gruffly. Who were these pre-adults kidding?  
  
"Yeah! But it's no the same!" Jubilee added.  
  
"I would need some new nail varnish and lipstick," Jean told the older mutant genuinely.  
  
"Ya don't need it, Red."  
  
The boys were watching the scene with a smirk. Everything was going like planned. Logan wouldn't be such a problem after all.  
  
"All right, all right!" Logan finally yelled at the teen-agers. "Go and get ya stuff and be right back!"  
  
Jubilee and Kitty's face illuminated straight away. "Thank you Mr Logan." And two girls, plus Jean and Amara ran away into the shop.  
  
"Ten minutes!" yelled Logan, but he didn't think that any of them had heard. He turned around to the boys. Bobby was busy trying to not burst out laughing, Sam was looking away, not wanting to get any attention, but his rosy cheeks and stupid grin couldn't be fooled. Pyro didn't even try to hide his mirth, and was laughing out loud, and Piotr, the Russian mutant was... stoic as usual. "What ya laughing at, kids. Want some extra work- out?" Logan asked with a grin.  
  
Scott was quick to act; giving glares to the boys, but his own gaze was twinkling with amusement. Bobby finally gave a slap to Pyro's head and the Acolyte finally calmed down, slightly.  
  
Logan tapped his foot impatiently, pulling a cigar out of his pocket, chewing on it's end. He really didn't want to be here, in town, with these kids. He was still sure that they were up to something, they'd been whispering behind his back since midday. He could smell their anxiousness, they were waiting for something to happen. Logan was all eyes and ears. He wondered how Rogue was faring with Gambit at the moment. Maybe something good would finally happen today: find the Acolyte in the med-bay when he got back to the Mansion.  
  
He didn't like that Gumbo one bit either. He reminded Logan of some sneaky person, he seemed all relax and always finding great lines for the girls, but Logan couldn't be mistaken. The boy had all the right skills to be some kind of thief.  
  
Logan had talked to the professor about Gambit. Xavier had nodded and had said: "Who knows what kind of people Magneto employs today." Logan glanced at the two Acolytes sitting on the bench: one mad Australian and a cold giant.  
  
Logan flexed his fingers, he could feel his claws just under his skin at the knuckles. He hoped Rogue was doing better than he was. What were taking the girls so long?  
  
***  
  
Rogue put her 'night' clothes to wash, she had to get any smell of Remy out of them, or Logan would be sure to guess. It was already a miracle he hadn't seen the faint bruise on her cheek; she'd covered it up with white make-up.  
  
"Why ya so cold, chere?" asked Remy psyche. "Ya got what ya wanted... Should be glad Remy feels somethin' fo' you. Gambit could get loads of femme any tim'..."  
  
Rogue hated that Swamp Rat, she was being manipulated by him; it was the only explanation. She'd let him touch her like that... without fighting. How he could touch her in the first place was what she wanted to know. Could she touch other people? And Remy psyche was starting to get very annoying. Was real Remy like that on the inside? Was she just another 'femme'.  
  
It was just like she'd lost control on her actions. There had been only one thing she'd wanted the previous night: to feel his touch, his warmth, to taste him, smell him. Rogue chucked the clothes into the washing machine.  
  
"Hope chere isn't mad at Remy."  
  
Rogue didn't dare turn around to look at Real Remy, she programmed the wash and tried to get out of the laundry-room. This was a little harder, as Gambit was blocking the way.  
  
His red eyes shined with concern, his forehead crunched up with worry. He brought his hand out to touch Rogue, she flinched away from him.  
  
"Did Remy hurt ya, chere?"  
  
Rogue didn't answer, just crossing her arms. She could wait all day for him to move without saying anything. She was as stubborn as that.  
  
"Fahne, stay like that!" Gambit shouted, frustrated. "Remy will just do de talkin'!"  
  
Gambit started pacing back and forth. "What is dat psyche saying!" He had the suspicion it was why she was mad at him.  
  
Rogue stayed stoic. Were they the same, Remy and his psyche?  
  
"Look, chere. Remy didn't want t' hurt ya. Remy promise. Remy was rough, he be sorry. Remy didn't have de control anymore..." He trailed off, stopping in his tracks, looking at Rogue.  
  
"Chere, say something..." His look was pleading.  
  
"Yeah, it kinda of hurts..." Rogue shut her mouth quickly. Why was she speaking to him? But her mouth wasn't obeying her brain. "Ah'd never before... Suppose Ah'd imagined it differently..." He looked so genuine...  
  
"Ya've seen to much soap operas, chere..."  
  
"Hey! Ah'm a sucker fo' romance, got a problem with that?" Rogue covered her mouth, what had she said? Her fluff love books were a secret! She couldn't go about saying things like this, she was meant to be a Goth at heart!  
  
"Romance, neh?" Gambit's usual smirk was back, his eyes now twinkling with mischief. If she'd said 'kinda hurts', it couldn't be that bad. He had just crossed the line into her 'very' intimate privacy.  
  
He walked over to her. Rogue trying to back away, he snaked an arm around her waist, cupping her cheek with a hand. They looked into each other's eyes, their gazes steady. Fire seemed to curl in Remy's pupils, warming Rogue's green diamond eyes, melting them.  
  
Remy slowly and steadily lowered his head to kiss Rogue tenderly on the lips, his eyes closing lightly It was a short contact, but the effect was the same. Rogue put her arms around Remy's neck, wanting him closer. Their lips met again, savouring the chaste feeling. Gambit pulled away momentary, making sure he wasn't dreaming. He asked for another simple, tender, kiss.  
  
Rogue was handling the situation quite well, not like Logan would expect, but ok; she wasn't being pulled in some over-passionate thing. Instead of trying to control her feelings, she let them guide her slowly at their will, softly.  
  
"The door," Rogue managed to mumble.  
  
Gambit dragged Rogue near enough to the door to be able to close it with his arm, not letting her lips escape his. Neither knew they were also closing the door right on the little Mary, that had been watching silently, invisible from any eyes.  
  
"Romantic enough?" Remy asked.  
  
"Open ya eyes... We're in a laundry-room, Swamp Rat..." Rogue feebly replied. She didn't really mind, though.  
  
***  
  
"I've had enough!" Logan growled. It had been three quarter of an hour since the girls had disappeared in the shop. "I'm going to get these pin- up, pre-adult suckers!"  
  
He glanced at the boys; they had been getting whiny and most annoying the last twenty minutes.  
  
"I betta find ya when I get back," Logan told them with a threatening glare. To make his point proven, he quickly shot out his claws, making them flash in the sun before drawing them back. He then stomped over to the girl's shop. He groaned; he couldn't stand the smell.  
  
When Logan was out of view. Scott stood up, his back straight.  
  
"Ok, guys, this is when we get into action," he said seriously. He looked at his watch. "It's half past three. Meet here in... one hour from now."  
  
Bobby and Sam fiddled with their own high-tech watches the Professor had given them.  
  
"What's going on?" Pyro asked, his head snapping to one side at Bobby, then to the other, on Sam. The two X-men got up from the bench. Colossus followed suit.  
  
"As the girls can't join us... Piotr, St.John. You'll go with Sam and meet the Brotherhood."  
  
"What's up with the Brothy Hood of Evil munchkims?"  
  
Colossus pulled Pyro up without questioning, dragging his comrade away with Sam. "It'ss their businesss, my friend. We musstn't interferre, this time."  
  
Bobby and Scott looked at each other. "Wolverine is going to kill us," said Bobby, gulping miserably.  
  
"It's for the good cause." -Scott, always with the big words. -  
  
They both ran into dark deserted street. Bobby lifted the metallic sewer lid and dragged it out of the way.  
  
The hole was much darker than the street; it seemed as an endless drop, blackness that would engulf you straight away. And to think that Evan, Ororo's nephew was now living down in there. This was Scott's and Bobby's job, find him, tell him. Evan, the mutant named Spike, was their friend, they wanted him back. Miss Ororo Monroe was already sick of worry... They had to take him back. This was their mission: to have Christmas all together, like a family. It was maybe a childish wish, but Scott, Bobby, the girls, Jamie and the rest wanted this a lot.  
  
Whereas Sam, he would try and convince the Brotherhood. Kitty would join him later and make Avalanche, Kitty's old sweet heart, come. It would be a happy Christmas, even thought Scott didn't really get on with them, it'd be nice, show that they're all united.  
  
Scott put his fingers to his glasses, switching a powerful light on, Bobby lit his own torch on, coming from his watch's frame this time. Scott jumped down; Bobby followed using the ladder.  
  
****  
  
femme=woman  
  
Heya! Ahhh... The X-men want to have Christmas all together. What did you think they were going to do? Rob a shop, destroy a Sentinel? Nah, they're just teens, really, they just want to be happy and have a good time. However, I suppose their plan is going to have more consequences than expected.  
  
Nosy little Mary, I think she's spying on Rogue! No wonder we didn't see her in the last chapter, she's gone completely invisible, for the moment. Hehehe... Revealed Rogue is as a Romance 'sucker', think Remy should give Rogue one of his own secrets now!!!  
  
Hope it self-explains about Kurt's 'mission', he's kind of having spy lessons from Emma Frost! I went around the characters, wondering who should... And like Kurt's (yep, ya right Unknown Source) mother, Mystique was already a spy, plus, Kurt knows what it feels to be discriminated directly, and he would probably like to get involved a bit more against this problem.  
  
Unknown Source: Gosh, I didn't think about the mutant detectors being everywhere... Well, suppose the Governor should decide for his state... Ok, I'll see to that! Thanks a lot!  
  
Gothic Cajun: Rogue's name is Anna? Mhh... Had she been lying in the film then?  
  
Kaylessa: Ok, here's update! *Blushing at the long comments! Love them!  
  
Syd: Hope this explains why Rogue is a bit mad at Remy. Suppose she wasn't expecting it to be sooo complicated, having to hide her relationship with a 'double' agent Magneto/Sinister... Gets a tad bit frustrating...  
  
Ishandahalf: Imagine Logan when he comes out of the shop and finds that the boys have disappeared!!! He's going to be raging mad!!! Hehehe... Well, the beginning of the story is putting each piece into place, and then having to construct over it. That's what I'm starting about now.  
  
Weeble Wobble Chic: Agree 100% that Romy is cute! Ahh... Tell me, is there a new episode with loads of Remy? Like I'm stuck in France, the new season hasn't even come out yet! sniff...  
  
Sarah-Crysala: You're right about Remy psyche, I suppose sharing the mind with one other person is a bit hard, just hope he knows his limits. Needs another psyche for him to stay in line... Maybe Logan...  
  
Winter fire: Writers block? Did I say writer's block? Suppose I did have one.. So that's what writer's block really is... Well, I can say for sure: it's a pain in the a**.  
  
Panther Nesmith: I would never disfigure Remy! Well, he would be as charming... would a nasty burn on his perfect face make him less attractive? Mh.. But he'll always be thy perfect Remy! (ok, I'm going overboard here!)  
  
Lupine Draconis: Update for the 18th chapter here! (Gosh, Already 18th? Wonder how much I can make...)  
  
Ok! Now's your turn to REVIEW!!!! Thanks in advance. You're my writing saviour!! (Makes me type faster! )****hint ;) 


	19. Looking Doubtful

Looking Doubtful  
  
***  
  
"Fantastic! I'm going to miss tea because of your all goody good plans!" Pyro complained. "It's insane! Big Bad Wolf is just goin' to track us down!"  
  
"Who's talking about Insanity?" Sam quipped. He was usually a shy guy, but being around with the Acolyte Pyro makes one 'itchy'.  
  
"No, my frriend," said Piotr. "I think there wass a rreason why Mr Logan didn't want to enter the shop..."  
  
Sam walked in front of them, his X-men sunglasses on his nose. They had to take the bus out of town, towards the Brotherhood house. They'd never thought it would be so complicated to get over there, but since the Sentinels' legal appearances, it was a little dangerous.  
  
"What? Hoping that the perfume would get up his nose and make him go bonkers so he can't track?" Pyro joked.  
  
"Exactly," Sam answered. Everyone knew that Logan had higher senses. It was a perfect plan. Wolverine had once entered the bathroom after Jubilee had used the place for an hour, he'd broken down the door to get out because he'd been so frantic.  
  
"You're mental!" Of course, it might not have been a good idea to take Pyro after all, he probably wouldn't have minded entering the girl's shop anyway.  
  
***  
  
Damp, dark, stinking was the only way to describe the sewers. Bobby and Scott advanced slowly down the tunnels, calling loudly.  
  
"Evan! We know you're here!"  
  
"We need to speak to you!"  
  
Scott glanced at his watch; it'd been three quarters of an hour they'd been searching. They hadn't thought it would be very easy, but they were starting to feel rather silly yelling into the emptiness, only the echoes of their own voices answering them.  
  
Bobby stopped in his tracks. "This is useless, they might not be here anymore!" said Bobby.  
  
"Courage, Bobby," Scott told him. "Just another half an hour and then we might just stumble on their hiding place."  
  
Iceman shook his head. "We've gone by this same pile of junk three times," he said mentioning some odd things piled against the wall of the tunnel. "I think we're lost..."  
  
"No!" Scott looked back down at his watch and switched the time to a GPS map of the sewers. "Well, maybe... Let's continue a bit more. The others are counting on us. Imagine Miss Monroe's face when she'll see her nephew appear for X-mas?" X-mas as in Christmas.  
  
"Ok, ok. Search some more."  
  
The two X-men walked some more in silence, scanning the walls with their torches, making sure they wouldn't miss any turnings. It was a sinister scene, they could hear the drip drip of water in the background, their own steps echoing and the little screeches of rats. Glad Kitty or Amara weren't here or they might have just fainted.  
  
"Dunno what this reminds me?" Bobby asked, trying to make a conversation.  
  
"What?" asked Scott.  
  
"The Sewers in Buffy, vampire slayer... They look just like this! Except they have demons and..."  
  
"Bobby, all sewers look like this," Scott told him, starting to get irritated. The X-men field leader had stopped walking, and was glaring at the same pile of junk as earlier. "I don't understand! We can't have gone around in circles all this time!"  
  
Bobby gave a kick to the junk, making it clatter away; "This is useless. We're going to get in trouble with Logan, the Prof won't be happy, and Miss Monroe will just get depressive..."  
  
There was a chuckle in the darkness; the two X-men turned around towards the source of the noise.  
  
"Is someone there?" Bobby asked.  
  
Scott was a little more direct. "Who's there?"  
  
A figure appeared out of the shadows, walking into the light. He... he was just simply dark: his skin was perfectly black as night, no eyes could be seen, it was just a slim figure, perfect for concealment in these gloomy sewers.  
  
"I pity you," the mutant said with a feminine voice, so it was a girl after all. It was hard to distinguish. "I'll take you to Spyke. Follow me."  
  
Scott was thinking trap while Bobby had already decided to follow the figure.  
  
"You're one of the Morlocks?" Bobby asked.  
  
"I'm on watch duty for them," she said before passing threw the wall magically, just before the pile of trash.  
  
"Where... Where are you?" Bobby called awkwardly, walking over to where she'd disappeared. The wall suddenly dissolved, revealing another tunnel. They both jumped back in surprise; it was a good concealment.  
  
"Follow..." The two X-men's lights slowly turned off, as if someone had placed a hand over them. Darkness fell and they had no other choice than to comply, steering their way with the help of the mutant's voice.  
  
She was a Morlock, no doubt in that: a mutant in hiding in the sewers, feared by the human world called the top-side.  
  
***  
  
Logan was hopping mad. It'd taken about a an hour to round up the girls. He was like blind without his sense of smell, dampened by all the perfumes. His eyes pricked, the back of his throat tickled uncomfortably. Then, when a sale clerk come up to him up to him, putting some kind of perfume right in front of his nose. Logan had nearly lost control and would have impaled the guy on his claws, if he hadn't found Kitty a second earlier, concentrating his rage on her.  
  
Worse than bickering girls in a girl shop, the boys had disappeared. His smell had gone haywire, he couldn't use it anymore, everything smelled like perfume, he couldn't even make the difference between Jubilee an the exhaust pipe of some passing car, and that was saying something.  
  
"YA got five seconds to spit it out!"  
  
"Logan, what you're talking about?" Kitty asked innocently, trying to pout and softened up Logan. However, there was limit to what Wolverine could take.  
  
At least he could still make the difference between truth and lie with the kid's face expressions.  
  
"No puppy dog eyes, half pint!" he barked. "Ya're already grounded for a year! Don't make it worse, girlies! Spit the truth out!" He glanced over the girls and their guilty faces. "What's that for? Trying to flash me unconscious?!" He was mainly referring to Jubilee who had applied some very pink lipstick that had been put out for tryout in the shop.  
  
Logan looked real mad, his eyes were red, and smoke could have come out of his ears if he'd tried just a little harder. In addition, a bad headache was now appearing. He never had headaches!  
  
"Sam, John and Pete went to find the brotherhood," Kitty squeaked in fear.  
  
"Bobby and Scott went to find Evan, Logan. You don't need to worry," Jean told him. "We just wanted it to be a surprise..." the telepath trailed off.  
  
"Yeah! Great! Ya get grounded now! Big surprise!" Logan yelled. People started glancing at them as they passed by, frowning as the adult shouted with spittle flying out of his mouth. Jean created a mild shield to not get hit. "Ya so in trouble, kiddos..."  
  
There was a moment of silence, while Logan repeated everything in his head once more. "Wait a minute, shrimps, Evan like in Spyke, porcupine boy? Ororo's side-kick?"  
  
What was he meant to do? His smelling sense was out! How could he find them? Why had he proposed to take them out in the first place? He should have made their last Danger-Room session harder, in provision of these kind of occasions.  
  
Wait, they had new technology! How he hated everything that had any link to computers...  
  
"Don't ya have new sunglasses, kids?" Logan asked pocking at his watch. He just needed to be able to use it. He glanced at Jubilee, who had hers as a hair band on her head. They all had GPS microchips incrusted in them.  
  
"Ok," Logan thought to himself. "Ya gotta make this work without braking it, bub..."  
  
***  
  
"Nice to have some new heads around," the mutant said, invisible to the boy's eyes. "You're those X-mutants, aren't you?"  
  
"X-men," Scott corrected, his hand against the tunnel's wall, trying to memorise the route in the darkness.  
  
"Is the girl with the white stripes one of yours, 'Rouge'? Is that it?" she asked, genuinely curious.  
  
"'Rogue'? Sure she is! She managed to destroy a Sentinel!!" Bobby told her.  
  
Rogue was rather a touchy subject lately. No one really liked to talk about it, but she'd come back weirder than what she was before. She wouldn't tell how she'd got Gambit's powers... The Acolyte and Rogue weren't on very good terms anyway. Maybe she had all theirs somewhere stocked up in her. Then there was her habit of talking to herself. Mary, one of the new recruits had been talking about it this morning.  
  
The voice stayed quiet for a moment, and the two X-men had to stop walking, unwilling to get lost.  
  
"She was lucky, the previous night we had deprogrammed some of those machines..." The voice was a little farther away.  
  
"You deprogrammed? Wait a minute, you know where they hide them?" Scott was frantic, if the X-men knew too, they could destroy them before they hurt anybody. He started advancing again.  
  
"It's not important..." the voice resounded, mournful.  
  
"Not important! What's wrong with you..." Bobby was cut off as he marched directly into the tunnel's wall. "Shi..." His hand sprung up to his nose and forehead. He massaged the painful area, thoughtfully. These morlocks were mad, how could such an information not be important?  
  
"They won't need Sentinels anymore to pick us out..."  
  
Bobby turned right, back towards the voice, his hand still on his nose, making sure it wouldn't start to bleed. The darkness seemed to have dimmed his other senses too, but not his thinking.  
  
"You mean like the Power8 soda? Put poison for mutants into drinks?"  
  
They stepped on something smoother, the flip flap of their feet in water becoming hard thuds.  
  
"We won't let it go that far," Scott tried to reassure Bobby... or himself. However, the little excursion was quickly turning into a horror movie.  
  
If they could put "it" in drinks, they also could put "it" into cereals... butter. Scott had a vision of Jean, sprawled on the floor, her eyes glazed over, her face pale because she'd ate a harmless piece of toast.  
  
"They could charge the air with that stuff, you know," the Morlock said, much closer than thought. "Here you are, I'll go and get Spyke boy. Don't you move."  
  
"Charge the air? Are you sure! They could kill every mutant..." Scott still had the picture of his lifeless girlfriend. Dread was quickly rising. "Tell us more," he asked her. However, no one answered, it was bleak silence. The drip noise was not far away anymore. "Are you still here?" The air was damp and stuffy.  
  
The light fixed on Scott's glasses slowly came back, as the one on Bobby's watch. They were both able to look at their surroundings. They stood right at the end of a rather large concrete room, probably for storage. There were still a couple of pipes fixed together, a broken neon lamp attached to the ceiling, looking broken.  
  
The drip drip was coming from a leak beside the entrance of the room, framed by steel, the door missing. They hadn't even realised they had passed a doorway. Bobby now understood why he had impelled himself into the wall; he'd missed the opening. He checked his hand, to see if there was any blood. To his relief, it came clean from his nose. He would just have a swell.  
  
***  
  
Mary ran around a hedge in the mansion's park. She was playing hide and seek with the other new recruits. She loved hide and seek, she was the best at it. One could walk by her and not see her at all!  
  
She scurried into a bare patch in the bushes, she might be invisible, but she didn't want anyone knocking into her.  
  
Mary looked around her. The bush was dying, a single white flower remained on it between the dying leaves and branches. The small bud looked pretty, defenceless. Each petal was like a snow flake, so delicate. She was about to pick it, when a white, bony hand stopped her from doing it.  
  
It was a young man, in his twenties, pale like he'd never seen the sun before. The black of the clothes and hair made him look ever more ghostly.  
  
"Hello, Mary," Death greeted.  
  
"Robin!" Mary was surprised and jumped out of her hiding place. She hadn't expected him to look... so old... Maybe she hadn't seen well that night. It'd been so dark and he'd seemed like a mere boy.  
  
"Don't pick the flower," he said gently. "Look." And with a wave of the hand, the stems started straightening, the leaves turning golden, then green, flowers blossoming, more white petals sprouting to meet the day.  
  
"Wow...." It was amazing, beautiful. She stretched out her hand, caressing the new-born leaves. It was soft... "Mary!" she heard Louise, the soot-girl call. "You've won again! You can come out now!"  
  
"I gotta go," she told Robin. Mary didn't know why, but she didn't think that Louise or any of the others should see her new friend. He was like a secret, only hers. "When will you bring back my mom?" she asked, her brown eyes looking up, shining with expectation.  
  
"Soon, just do as I told you, and then you'll see your mother again," said Death, no emotion showing in his voice.  
  
Mary nodded and ran away towards Jamie's voice telling her to come out.  
  
Death looked back at the bush, and with a last wave of the hand, the stems broke, the flowers fell to the ground, dried up, the leaves disintegrated. It always amazed him how easy it was to bring life... and death.  
  
***  
  
Flame 31, I went to check the site, aifandom.com, and I'm on my way to start writing some letter for cartoon to continue. It was also a great help, episode guide was great, profiles of all the mutants... Just what I needed, at least I know exactly what are some names... Rogue is already translated to Malicia in French... The titles of the episodes in English...  
  
Winter Fire: Ok, small writers block this time, plus bad marks at school, so working... Blabla. But i've updated. Nothing very exiting, I know, no Remy-Rogue, oops.  
  
Weeble Wobble chic: I know! Isn't it terrible!!!! French Tv hasn't decided yet to put it on!!!! They're busy putting old episodes instead of the new season! Grhhh!!!!! That's why I started this from after Apocalypse Release! In my story, the Apoc is busy somewhere else for the moment, but will come back to ruin stuff... And i supposed that Mystique had been put away in prison, even thought she was just a statue, just in case she turns back... Oops! I'm revealing some of my plot here!!!  
  
Kaylessa: Sam is meant to be a shy guy, blond, looking nice. H's meant to be a geek with girls (so aifandom.com says.) He's code name is Cannonball, he can whoosh around like a cannonball (you might have guessed. Remember when all the X-men help put the Mansion back together, while Scott is putting the satellite dish up on the roof with Logan, there's this guy that makes holes in the ground by crashing down into the earth...) he's kind of invulnerable when he switches his mutation on.  
  
"Chere be blinded by lov'?" "love can make one blind", I suppose it goes with what Hank had said in one chapter, can't remember the number, Mutation can be blind folded just like for the eyes: mutation would be like any part of the body, it can be fooled (Logan's smell sense), removed (imagine if you got amputated of the arm) or damaged (Scott's eye blasts, he hit his head hard against a stone when young, (other story) and in some way damaged a part of the brain that could have given him control)))).  
  
In some way, 'love' or 'desire' is fooling/blinding Rogue's power. There's 'trust' too, but I don't know if she really trusts him. Anyway, which one could it be here? Well, like I've made you all wait so long for this update, consider it like an information treat.  
  
HologramX: Thanks for the information!  
  
Gothic Rogue: Yeah, Rogue movie seems a bit a like a frightened kitten at some point (suppose it's the touch thing), but is independent and has the accent...  
  
Syd: Glad you liked the last chapter, what about this one?  
  
Ishandahalf: If their Christmas project ever happens (I haven't decided, but it's a nice thought) it'll be loads of fun writing it. Hey, and all of you! If you got some special wish that you like me to put in, the Christmas chapter will be the one! Winks at Yumiko for the Remy seen in towel! But I'll probably get to that one before!  
  
Lupine Draconis: Getting any better?  
  
UnknownSource: Logan hates girly shops. Not sure about the description, didn't get him directly in the there, but expressed his feelings after.  
  
Sarah Crysala: Mary might be getting influenced by Death... It's no good news... Imagine the questions everyone would have if they discovered that Rogue could touch Remy!!! I can see a mad Logan from afar for sure!  
  
Angst Wolf: Thanks for the information! Sorry, got... delayed.  
  
Panther Nesmith: Answered the touch thing higher up... I'm telling all my plot away, or important details of the plot, anyway... But I suppose it makes you watch out later on! Your suggestion for the touch reason was one possibility I nearly chose, but Hank came up with his speech, and it has flown from there since.  
  
Well, sorry, sorry, sorry for the late update! I'll try and not make it happen again! Meanwhile, hope you enjoyed this chapter, even thought there is no Remy Rogue, of which I deplore. 


	20. HOT

***  
  
"We're, like, screwed for the next month. How am I going to go Christmas Shopping?"  
  
Kitty and Kurt climbed the stairs, their spirits low. Operation X-mas had been a total mess. When Sam, John and Piotr had finally arrived to the Brotherhood house, things hadn't turned out quite well. They'd been all missing, Blob, Toad and Lance had been no where in sight, neither the twins, Pietro and Wanda. The house had been left in a mess, worse than usual. Let's say all the windows had been broken, half of the roof had collapsed into the house. Kitty just hoped it was the boys' usual messiness and nothing else (being the Sentinels).  
  
"Like, aren't you're asking me what I did all day?" The blue mutant didn't answer.  
  
Kurt didn't feel any better. He'd had his ups and downs all day with Emma Frost, his new personnel teacher. He felt exhausted, his tail was sore. His first lesson had been listening for useful information, trying to figure out people's motivations. Interesting, but a bit twisted. Then Frost had taken him up to the top of a skyscraper, like RockerFella Centre in the heart of Manhattan. What a fright when she'd pushed him off the top. He'd quickly teleported himself back up, unsure how to react at his mad/psycho teacher. "Try and be suspicious of everything you aren't sure. And when you're sure about something, try and find something suspicious." Later on, she'd confessed that "you mustn't be overly suspicious." God how his head ached. He didn't get the woman one bit, and was starting to wonder where this would lead him. And now he had no more energy to spare.  
  
"You're going to bed, like, now?" Kitty asked him as he headed towards his room. He babbled something that had no sense and disappeared into his bedroom, forgetting to close the door behind him.  
  
Kitty sighed and went to her own room. Is was dark, and she fumbled for the switch. Something cracked under her shoe as she swore. It was her earring she'd dropped in the morning in a rush and hadn't had time to pick up.  
  
"Great, great, great."  
  
Suddenly the light went on, Kitty made some sort of small piercing cry in surprise.  
  
"Oh god, Rogue, it's you..." She breathed in deeply, trying to calm herself.  
  
The Goth went back to her bed with a book. "Thought ya needed some help there."  
  
"Thanks." Kitty put her bags down from her day's purchases and started going through them, putting the clothes away in her drawer. "What were you, like, doing in the dark anyway?" Kitty asked Rogue.  
  
"Reading," she mumbled deep in her book.  
  
"And like how could you do that in the dark?"  
  
Rogue looked up at her friend and Kitty finally saw the red on black eyes. "Burrowed som' of Gambit's powahs." She then put the book away, and the foreign colours in her eyes disappeared.  
  
"Oh..." The freshman fished out some black tops and a skirt and threw them over to Rogue. "They're for you."  
  
"Thanks." Rogue picked them up to see what they were like.  
  
"Talking about Gambit, seen him lately?"  
  
Rogue mumbled something before finally replying. "What about the Swamp Rat?"  
  
Kitty sighed and let herself fall backwards on her bed. "He's like so HOT!" Rogue lifted an eyebrow at this and Kitty could have sworn that she'd seen the Goth smile.  
  
"Can you, at least, like, ask how my day went?" Kitty asked her friend.  
  
"Nope," Rogue replied jumping out of bed and trying the skirt on. "Bobby told meh everythin' already, and Ah guessed it was pretty bahd when Ah sahw Logan stomp out of the Mansion and leave with his motorbike."  
  
"It was worse than bad. We, like, had decided to invite the Brotherhood and all for Christmas," Kitty explained. "Scott and Bobby actually went down in the sewers to try and find Evan."  
  
"They found him?" Rogue asked, Bobby hadn't said anything about this. The Iceman had just looked at her strangely, babbled some information and had then gone to the kitchen.  
  
"Nope, they don't even want to talk about it. We put up this whole scheme to sneak past Logan and all. Wolverine got all confused and red faced in the perfume shop and couldn't smell a thing!"  
  
"It didn't work, though."  
  
"No," Kitty revealed miserably. "We like have these GPS chips in our X-men sunglasses, and he was able to track us down with that."  
  
Rogue frowned suspiciously, she always had those glasses with her and the others probably had had them with them too. She could even remember Jubilee leaving that morning with her pair on her head. Kitty glanced over at Rogue who was now wearing the skirt. It came down just above her knees; her legs were cream white. Then she saw it, that half smile on Rogue's face.  
  
"Like, what happened to you? You looked all mighty pleased with something."  
  
Rogue's face became stony white, but the corner of her lips itched into a smile. "Ah just had a good day."  
  
"Tell me! Tell me!" Kitty begged.  
  
Rogue rolled her eyes. "Nahthing special."  
  
"Okay, like, keep your secrets, missy." Kitty crossed her arms over her chest and pouted.  
  
Rogue, bare foot and still wearing the skirt got out of the room. Kitty quickly stood up from her bed and followed her friend out; she wouldn't abandon so easily. "Tell me! Tell me!" Rogue did her best to ignore the exited freshman. "Has it got anything to do with Gambit?"  
  
"Ya're out of ya mind, Kitty," Rogue lied perfectly.  
  
"Oh, like been fooling around with Mr Logan's bike?"  
  
"Wrong again."  
  
They were now nearing the bathroom where Rogue intended to wash her face and teeth to be able to go to bed. The corridor was dim, no stars could be seen out of the window and the wind made the glass rattle slightly. Fortunately for Logan that was out, he wouldn't be able to feel the cold.  
  
Kitty bit her thumb, squinting in thought. "You're, like, torturing me!" she cried out in dismay. "You're evil!"  
  
"Dat's what Remy keep tellin' chere." Rogue couldn't stop the words coming out of her mouth, and she clapped her hands over it.  
  
"Pardon?" Kitty looked up at Rogue in surprise. "You said something?" The freshman hadn't noticed anything. Rogue sighed in relief.  
  
"Nah, nothin'," Rogue was quick to answer, opening the bathroom door. Warm steam waffled out, dampening her face. "What the..." Even Jean didn't let it get that damp and warm in the bathroom (her hair would get frizzy!)  
  
Kitty's jaw dropped as she saw Remy walk out only in his boxers. His towel was slumped over a shoulder in a casual way, his hair was soggy and messy. Rogue had to give her a friend a small jab in her side with her elbow to make the girl come back to the living. The Goth couldn't lie that he was good looking, and tried not to blush at the thought of the night before.  
  
"Move swamp rat, ya can't monopolise the bathroom fo' ever. It's worse than the tropical forest in there."  
  
A smirk played on his lips. He moved aside for the Rogue to get in, his moist skin gleaming in the corridor light, his muscles rippling in his shoulder and arm as he lifted it as if showing her the way. Rogue sneered and got in, slamming the door behind her.  
  
Remy chuckled and made his way down the corridor, giving Kitty a wink on the way.  
  
Kitty, getting out of her stupor, phased through the door to join Rogue. The Goth was busy taking her make-up off.  
  
"That's what I, like, mean when I say he's HOT!" Kitty said fanning her face with her hand. She then grabbed her toothbrush and tried to put the toothpaste on the brush part. Like she wasn't concentrating on what she was doing, she squirted the stuff on the wrong end.  
  
"Toothpaste, Kitty!" Rogue reminded her.  
  
"Oh, yeah..."  
  
***  
  
Rogue was still wide-awake in bed, listening attentively to Kitty's breathing. It finally slowed down to an even rhythm. Rogue got out of bed in her pyjamas and tiptoed over to her friend's bed.  
  
"Sorry Kitty, but I really need ya." Rogue's hand came down to her friend's face and gently stoked it. There was a small absorption and the freshman lightly moaned in pain. She didn't wake up however to Rogue's relief.  
  
"Hey! Like, what's happened to me?" Kitty asked inside Rogue, in her psyche form.  
  
"Hey, Kit Kat," Remy greeted her. "Chere has just absorbed ya."  
  
"What? Rogue? Like, can you hear me! Why did you attack me?"  
  
"Shuh!!" Rogue told the Kitty to be quite.  
  
Rogue massaged the sides of her head, trying to make the small headache leave.  
  
"Ah needed ya powah."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"To visit Remy."  
  
"Remy? Like in Gambit? What for?"  
  
Rogue groaned, wasn't it obvious? "Listen, ya find him hot?"  
  
"I've, like, been telling you that since he came to the Mansion with the others!"  
  
"Well, if ya phase me to his room, ya'll get a double serving of what ya saw earlier when he came out of the bathroom."  
  
"Like, okay." Rogue slowly passed through the floorboards, landing in a spare room underneath. She then passed through the door and headed for Remy's room.  
  
"But, like, is it like spying, or ogling... that's pretty sick Rogue!"  
  
"It's nothin' like that!" Rogue snapped back.  
  
With little sound or none at all, Rogue had arrived in front of Remy's door. The corridor was obscure, and Rogue listened, making sure there was no one about. She then phased through Remy's door.  
  
His room was even darker than the corridor, and Rogue could hardly distinguish the forms and shapes. She slowly advanced to where his bed was meant to be. Then something tackled her onto the bed. Kitty psyche cried out panic stricken. "I'm attacked! No, we're attacked!" Rogue couldn't get up, a weight on her stomach stopping her from doing so. "We're going to die!"  
  
"Hey, chere..."  
  
"Help!" Kitty screamed. It was only when she felt hands roam over her stomach, snaking around her waist, one pulling off Rogue's pyjama's top and that something met her lips that she realised what was happening. "Oh my... this is, like not happening."  
  
"Shut up," Rogue managed snap back before losing herself in the warm embrace Remy was offering her.  
  
***  
  
Okay, I've finally updated, I can't even count how many versions this chapter had, but I opted for the more, fun, light hearted one. It was getting to depressive to my taste! A little Kitty brightens up a bit. Well, I got the Remy in only boxers, don't know about the description, but I suppose you can see the effect it has on Kitty well enough.  
  
AngstWolf: and I've updated again! Woah! I'm overdoing myself (sarcastic, wish I could update sooner)  
  
Ishandahalf: Remy in boxers, not towel, you mind?  
  
ChaosCat: you say kids are trouble, out of practice or first hand annoyance from those little monsters? (I can talk, I'm fifteen in my adolescent changy moods, I despair my parents!)  
  
Panther Nemsis: You got it right! So I'm not that twisted then! Gee, I was hoping to lose you all in my crazy plot!  
  
Sarah-Crysala: Thanks for the update, great as usual.  
  
Kaylessa: one of the versions of this chapter had Sam getting caught by the sentinels, but the story just needed to breathe and Rogue and remy on the bike down town (I'll have to put that somewhere, it was fun! But story just screwed up, and things were coming in way too fast!)  
  
Crayons taste like purple: hope u enjoy this chapter. ;)  
  
Dragonseizer: really, my fic's recommended? I didn't expect that... Cool! It's great to write something for fun, that gives you pleasure and that other people appreciate .  
  
Well, toodly doo. Gotta go. 


	21. Pain hiding in the corners

Pain hiding in the corners  
  
Rogue was laying down on the newly cut grass, the smell filtering threw her nostrils. The sun shone bright, the birds sung in the nearby trees. It seemed perfect, the fresh breeze caressing her skin, there was no pain, only happiness. It was perfect.  
  
However, something troubled Rogue. She sat up and gazed about. She was back in Cadlecott, in the back garden. The swing creaked, and she gazed towards it curiously. Someone was sitting upon it, an adult with no distinct form. She was humming something. Noticing Rogue, she got off and advanced towards the Goth.  
  
"Knock, Knock..."  
  
Something grabbed Rogue by the throat, and oxygen was squeezed out of her body. She clawed the air franticly. Used, dying, hidden, dark...  
  
"...Who is there?"  
  
Rogue tried to scream, but in vain. The face hovered over her, taunting as Rogue shocked helplessly. Her mind was reeling, her body shaking terribly. The pressure on her throat made her vision swim, no coherent thought was forming in her head.  
  
Shocking... dying... alone... disappearing... used... without control.  
  
Feral eyes peered down, colours swirling before settling to a green hue, then to the yellow of a known foe.  
  
***  
  
Remy walked the room, silently. The clock told him he'd been already up for an hour. It was still dark outside. He'd glance at Rogue, sleeping on his bed, looking so peaceful, angelic. In the dark with his mutated eyes, he could see her white skin glow, her hair fall over the side of the bed, and that small smile... He nervously ran his hand threw his hair. He'd been the one telling her to relax, he'd maybe played the part too well. He hadn't expected her to come, on her own accord. He was having seconds thoughts. He was a thief, a renegade, womaniser, a poker-man and a killer.  
  
It all came down to that. He was a murderer. He'd killed Psylocke, in that alleyway, or he'd thought so... More than just once, blood on his hands. Rogue, she hadn't been herself, the psyches would sometimes make her do "things". She would have never accomplished such an evil deed. He'd done it, because HE'd wanted to do it. It wasn't Remy, nor Gambit, but the real HIM, the dark, cruel side of him. It was HE, the inner HIM. And she loved HIM, or he thought so. Why would she love him, respect him, or even appreciate him in the end? He was a murderer, and he was using her.  
  
Remy put his hands to his head. He wasn't making much sense. He groaned and sat on the side of the bed, just watching her sleep. The angelic picture gave his mind peace. So angelic she was, immobile, deep in her dreams.  
  
A thrown spread across his forehead. From where he sat now, she didn't seem to smile anymore, instead there was a twisted scowl resting on her face. Then realisation hit him. Immobile, not moving at all. Her chest was still, putting a finger underneath her nose he felt for her respiration. Nothing. Panic took him.  
  
Remy shook her, calling her by her name. Nothing, nothing, nothing... Her skin was ice cold.  
  
"Please chere!"  
  
He pushed her chin down, opening her mouth. Pinching her nose, he blew air down her throat. 'Please chere...'  
  
***  
  
"Mystique!" Rogue cried out, sitting up in shock. She was covered with sweat, the cover tangled around her body. A dream, just a dream... Rogue breathed in; it felt sweet, this air entering her lungs once more. No, it was more than a dream.  
  
"Chere!" Remy exclaimed in relief. He was sitting beside Rogue, an expression of utter worry spread across his handsome face. He gently pushed her back down in a laying position, his hand finding hers.  
  
"Mystique," Rogue repeated once more. "She's there, in me!" She shivered, wrapping an arm around herself. Remy was quick to put the covers around her. Rogue felt sick, the terrorist was in her, there, hiding in her mind. "She" had always been so quite. Rogue had sometimes even forgotten that Mystique had ever been there.  
  
"It's all right, Remy be dere..." He might be there, but Mystique was in her!  
  
"She was there, holdin' meh down..." Rogue still felt the touch of the icy hands on her throat. Those eyes, did Mystique really hate her? Why?  
  
It was those questions that brought her to knock on the Professor's office door, after have dressed, washed... It frightened her.  
  
"Hey, Roguey!"  
  
Rogue jumped, surprised and faced her brother in law. Kurt looked a bit tired; he yawned heavily, revealing a set of sharp white fangs. Rogue mustn't have looked quite awake either for he asked what was wrong.  
  
"Mh... Just gotta seeh the professor," she replied, trying to not stare at his yellow eyes. They had never frightened or repulsed her, but she couldn't seem to look right at them at them, not after last night. However, it had started way before, when Mystique had blown up the Institute. "Where were ya yesterday, anyway?"  
  
He looked away, scratching the back of his head thoughtfully. "I'm not meant to be telling you this, but... You're mein sister, I suppose..."  
  
Rogue gulped silently. She wasn't telling him anything. "It's ahlright, Ah understand..." She had her 'secrets', he could keep his own.  
  
"No no," he protested. "We arr family." Kurt came closer and lowered the tone of his voice. "I... I have been training with this mutant, as some kind of spy. I'll be helping the X-men loads!"  
  
Cold sweat ran down the side of Rogue's face. He was enthusiastic. A spy... Hadn't Mystique been a kind of spy? In the shadows, observing everyone, planning, calculated, sneaky... A terrorist.  
  
"De Professor gave me the thumbz up," he said, smiling broadly, doing the gesture in a comic way, thrusting his blue thumbs up. However, it came out rather sickly for Rogue. "Have you senn Mr Logan anyhao?"  
  
Rogue shook her head negatively and then gave him a fake smile. She couldn't seem to be able to speak to him, or look at him. She was bad enough, a killer, but letting her step-brother become some kind of spy. She entered the office after the Professor had called her in.  
  
The last days had been chaotic, being declared as a wanted and dangerous criminal, the missing month from her memories, Remy, the massacre... Sinister. It isn't easy for a seventeen, eighteen years old mutant girl. But things weren't usually easy for a mutant anyway. And all the troubles layering on top... Would she just fall under the weight? Not yet, but soon enough.  
  
"Ah... Rogue, good morning." The professor looked as serene as ever, his blue eyes deep with thought. "Slept well?"  
  
Rogue frowned suspiciously, had he seen her dream? Had he been sneaking about? "Naht well enough. There was Mystique."  
  
It was his turn to frown. "What kind of problems has she been causing?"  
  
And so Rogue told him about the dream, the feeling that Mystique's psyche was inside her, that she'd been hiding, or just keeping quiet. He must have seen, or felt that Rogue was a little frightened, and angry.  
  
Professor Xavier stroked his chin, staring passively at Rogue who was sitting on the other side of his desk. "Would you like me to enter your mind, search her out?"  
  
The question hung in the air. Letting him in would mean him knowing everything, everything. "Yes." Rogue felt relieved, she wanted everything to stop, the questions to be finally answered. She'd be surely punished, but she just didn't care, punishments were just punishments, a childish thing. "Yes, Ah want ya too," Rogue repeated.  
  
"The truth is..." he seemed to be weighing his words, however, the answer came out simply, "I can't." It couldn't have been said any other way.  
  
Rogue looked at him firmly. "Why?"  
  
"Since you've come back, I haven't been able to read you at all, or feel you for that matter," he started to explain. "All I can suggest for the moment is some thinking exercises... relaxation... and then, maybe..."  
  
He didn't know anything! Since the beginning he hadn't been able to read her!  
  
Again, Rogue wasn't listening. It'd be harder than she'd thought. Then maybe, she should tell him everything, and then he could help, it wasn't Mystique her only problem, but everything. If he could just look inside, see by himself. But no. Telling him face to face seemed much harder, impossible. She couldn't say; "Ah've killed these peoples, but it wasn't meh," or "Ah've been sleeping with Remy, Gawd knows why."  
  
"So, Mystique is inside you. I'm sorry I can't help more at the moment, but... Tell me how it felt, what Mystique felt."  
  
"Well...Ah... She seemed crahzy. Suppose she was angry."  
  
The Professor nodded slowly. "You're aren't sure, Rogue." It wasn't a question, he'd announced it as the truth. He couldn't read in Rogue's mind, but it didn't stop him from using his psychology doctorate. "I would like you to close your eyes, take deep breaths and replay your dream."  
  
Rogue did so, even though she was a little uncomfortable. It slowly came back. She was in the garden once more and the swing creaking again. The image faded slightly, only to come back more precise. Then Mystique approached her, Rogue actually saw her more neatly now. Those large glasses of hers were perched on her nose, her brown hair flowing gently in the breeze. She bent down.  
  
"Tell me now, how is she holding herself," Xavier's voice drummed slowly in from the exterior.  
  
"She's crouching, her hanhd on the ground, the ohther on her lap."  
  
"What is she wearing?"  
  
"A brown suit...no... blahck clothes... She keeps shifting." The form were changing now, becoming a permanent blur. However, the psyche's form stopped brutally to blue skin and yellow eyes while it's hand lashed out for Rogue's throat. The Goth broke off from the memory strait away, not wanting to feel the death grip again on her neck, feel the pain. And that was what it was, in Mystique's feral yellow eyes, Pain, not hate, nor anger, just pain.  
  
Opening her eyes, Rogue saw the Professor staring expectantly at her. "Mystique is in pain."  
  
He gave her small 'ah' of understanding before going back into thoughtful silence.  
  
Rogue started to get up and head for the door, unsure of what she'd just discovered. However, the Professor speaking once more stopped her from going further.  
  
"Would you like to see her? Mystique... your step-mother."  
  
Rogue clenched her fist hearing the last word, but thinking about it better, maybe it could clear up some things.  
  
"Maybe Kurt would be grateful to accompany you. I have a new image inducer." He opened one of his draws and pulled out some kind of black watch. "Mystique has been kept for months in prison, even thought she's made of rock."  
  
Rogue remembered, the tortuous face of the terrorist stilled into rock. She'd tried to banish that picture for so long. "Nah, the bitch can stahy were she is." Rogue wanted to snap her mouth shut, but she didn't seem to be in control anymore. "Ah never want t' see her again." Her green eyes flashed dangerously. Was the Professor doing it on purpose? guiding Kurt's steps closer to Mystique's own more than reasonable?  
  
"I would have wished that you'd have been maybe more polite, Rogue, towards your step-mother," the Professor scolded her, putting back the image inducer into the desk's right hand draw. Rogue's gaze followed it carefully  
  
"If you wish, we can put camera surveillance, in case she comes to 'visit' you again, wake you up if need be. It's all I can offer for the moment. I'm sure Logan won't mind "  
  
Rogue nodded, before retreating from the office.  
  
***  
  
Mary walked into the living room with her doll. Her brown eyes looked side to side, searching for the blue demon. Approaching the sofa, she found him lying on it, hands under his head, his tail twitching in the air.  
  
"Do you want to play with me?" she asked him innocently.  
  
He sat up and gave her warm smile. "What do you want too' play at?" he asked her, his yellow eyes twinkling.  
  
"I don't know, like hide and seek, or dolls," she proposed hopefully.  
  
Kurt huffed in amusement. "Sorry mein sweet, but..." How could he explain to her that dolls just weren't his thing.  
  
"You look troubled," her small voice brought Kurt back. He looked at her questioningly. How could she know? Rogue was, different from before, more secretive, harder maybe. "Is it because of the Goth?" Mary asked. This picked up his interest. "Is it because of her speaking to nobody thing?"  
  
"Maybe..." Kurt mumbled. He just wished that Rogue could be more open. He was her sister after all, she'd gone missing, come back as if nothing had really changed at the mansion. But didn't she realise? He'd changed, the Professor had changed, everybody had changed more or less. As if she didn't realised that a whole month had passed between her disappearance and her return. Maybe he was overdoing it because of Frost's new training, but he was suspicious. Was it really Rogue?  
  
"Is it because of the thing between Gambit and Rogue? Because they kiss and all?" Mary inquired.  
  
Maybe he needed a real talk with his sister, to discover what she was really hiding.  
  
****  
  
Rogue had stomped off to her room. She growled in anger and slammed her door shut. Kitty wasn't there to her relief  
  
How dare the Professor propose that she should go and see Mystique! And what the hell was he doing with Kurt! He was using her step-brother, her friend... The X-men weren't servants, they helped people if they wanted to, they weren't made a tool and sent to do whatever task. Then maybe she should go and see Mystique, take a baseball bat with her and smash the statue to pieces. Be over and done with.  
  
[been training...as..spy...] [De Professor gave me the thumbz up.] Damn Professor! Didn't he see!  
  
There was a knock on the door, however they didn't wait for Rogue to invite them for the door swung open.  
  
"Remy, just leave meh alone for a while!"  
  
"It's not Remy." Rogue turned around as she heard Kurt's voice. The blue demon entered and closed the door behind him. "It's just ya're big Brother." There was a pause. "Ya're crying?"  
  
Rogue wiped the single tear off her cheek and faced Kurt with not as much hate as she'd wanted in the first place. "What d' ya want?" Rogue asked, but her voice was becoming weaker as it went on.  
  
"To talk, mein sister, just to talk."  
  
Just Kurt's presence took the anger away and Rogue sat on the end of her bed. She couldn't be mad at the blue demon for long.  
  
"Ar' ya sure about this spy thahng?" said Rogue. "Is it t' be Xavier's tool?"  
  
"It'z not like that!" Kurt protested. "It'z to sharpen mein senses, prepare me for the real world. It'z dangerous out there for mutants like uz. The ozers don't realise how much."  
  
"The friends of humanity, the politicians, the business men. Hate, powah or jahst money." Rogue recited. She'd known for some time.  
  
"I don't want to stay in ze mansion for ever, Roguey. I'll go back..."  
  
"Germany?"  
  
"Ya, one day." Brother and sister looked into each other's eyes. Kurt went to sit next to Rogue. "I asked ze Professor for ze training. I want to help ze others, stop ze hate, becauze I know zat just a bunch of kids are not going to change ze world."  
  
Both of them thought about Scott and the others wanting to have a nice Christmas together, with the Brotherhood, Brotherhood that was missing by the way. Wanting to have a nice Christmas was not a kid thing, it was just naive hope, a hope that even adults couldn't spit on. Rogue didn't as a kid, nor an adult.  
  
"Ze Professor doesn't know where ze Brotherhood is. Dead, or captured. That's why Sam, Piotr and StJohn didn't find them."  
  
"The Sentinels," Rogue breathed.  
  
"Ya... or they're just off for ze vaccancions in Fiji," Kurt tried to joke.  
  
"Without the Professor being able to find them? With Cerebro, even if Fiji is on the other side of the world."  
  
"You missed a lot in ze one month you left." There was a pause. "How come you and Gambit..." Kurt started phrasing, blushing slightly.  
  
Rogue stared at him in surprise. "how did ya..."  
  
"I'm a spy!" Kurt told her. Rogue arched an eyebrow sceptically. "Okay, Mary told me."  
  
"Mary? The little invisible girl?" Rogue thrown. She didn't really know the little girl, had hardly spoken to her. Rogue wanted to add that she didn't like the newbies, but she bit her tongue, she had the impression of a deja- vu, in a different conversation, probably with Remy.  
  
"Ya, zat one. She's cute and all. But you and Gambit? Makes me want to shudder." Rogue gave him a playful punch in the arm. "Suppose zat no one else knows, not even MrLogan." Kurt got up, gave Rogue a slight tap on the back and left his sister to think on her own.  
  
Rogue massaged the sides of her head, feeling a head ache coming on. She hadn't had one for a while. She was still thinking of Mystique. And if the psyche attacked again in Rogue's sleep? Logan would wake her up, she was sure. Then Rogue remembered something, when she'd been in the lab, fighting all those soldiers to death, she'd erased Kitty, could she do the same with Mystique? The thought pained her; it had been dreadful for the freshman. Rogue still remembered her piercing cry. But this was Mystique, everything was different in this case then.  
  
"I, like, don't know what the hell is going on!" whined psyche Kitty. "What are you thinking about?"  
  
***  
  
Ouch, Mary is speaking a little too much, ain't she? At least Logan wasn't in the house at that moment, if he'd heard.. Bigger ouch to be sure. Rogue is having very dark thoughts, wanting to kill Mystique, mind-wise. Is she becoming more like the Rogue controlled by Sinister, but this time she might be choosing the path herself.  
  
By the way, seeing the old episodes of X-men evolution, I was wondering something. Is it respectable putting Blob as an obese dumb ass, which no one likes? Is it meant to be a stereotype? Or just to stop kids from eating bad food anytime? Just a question, or a couple. Oh yeah, you know, when Mesmero controls Rogue and makes her touch loads of people, when she gets to the Acolyte base. If you put the kiss between her and Remy in slow motion, you have the impression that he kisses back. However, when it's in normal speed, he just does a dumb noise and faints. Anway (u don't want to hear my babbling,) reviews then!  
  
AngstWolf: thanks for the review that made me move my butt a tad bit faster, well, maybe not my butt, but my fingers on the keyboard for certain! Thanks again! ;)  
  
Kaylessa: thanks for spotting the "threw" thing! Be reloading it to stop the confusion. If you see any other weird words going about when they shouldn't be there, ring the alarm for me! I'll correct them (I also have a thought-though problem, and a knew-new (even if I know what they mean, I always type them wrong. Sigh)  
  
Zen Bailong: ain't much fluffy romyness in this chap, I know, but Remy gets a cookie for saving her life I suppose! *awh... sigh  
  
Ishandahalf, oh! didn't mean in the way that I thought you'd mind because he was in boxers, just a lousy joke of mine because if he'd just been wearing a towel, maybe that piece of cloth would have just slipped... oups. But kitty would have had a heart attack, I suppose  
  
Sarah-Crysala: Update! Ta-dum!!!! It's a longer chapter!  
  
T.: I'm glad u enjoy the story, and I think I've finally figured out how to explain Rogue's one month memory absence. But it might turn out too complicated to explain...  
  
M: chapter 3, what was in chapter 3 already. Oh yeah. Well, basically, this "Death" guy controls age, his own, other people's (or has regenerating powers that he can also negate, haven't really decided yet). In the chapter, at which point did u get confused?  
  
Thanks again for the reviews 


	22. One Early December Morning

Chapter 22: One Early December Morning  
  
Slung over his motorcycle, Remy pulled a cigarette from behind his ear, where he'd left it earlier for safekeeping.  
  
"Give Remy a light, homme."  
  
Pyro sighed, picking his lighter out of his pocket. Silver, with a shark engraving on it. It'd been his father's. It had quite a story, really. Stole it, just before leaving home. He really didn't like sharing it, but it was Gambit after all. "Lost yours, mate?" He threw his lighter to Remy, who caught it smoothly.  
  
"Remy can say that." He flicked it upon, the flame lighting up. It watched it, a steady stream of yellow, a little blue at the bottom. His lighter, well, Rogue had found it on his bed. It had slipped out of a back pocket.  
  
_Her nose wrinkled. "If Ah don't kill ya, Swamp Rat. This might." She gestured to the packet of cigarettes she'd found not far from where the lighter had laid. "Ya ottah stop, ya know... bahd fo' the health. An' Kitty says it gets ya teeth yellow. Ya know the rest."  
  
Remy watched Rogue from behind, lying down on the bed next to her. Her back was bare, and the scar was in plain view, but she didn't seem to mind too much. Her brown hair fell over her shoulders, locks of white curling from the side of her face, framing it perfectly.  
  
She had a slight quizzical look, as if she was listening to something (probably a psyche). She took a cigarette out, looking it over thoughtfully before placing it to her lips. As she was about to light it up, he pulled up to her and snatched it from her mouth, hiding it behind his ear.  
  
"Chere doesn't want to do dat."  
  
She looked up at him angrily. "What do ya know 'bout what Ah want, Cajun." But her glare hadn't lasted long, as she'd scooped up back next to him, his arm circling her waist once more. Her head rested against his heart and she sighed, content.  
_  
It was still early in the morning, and the sun was barely coming over the horizon, the room still bathed in shadow. Frost had taken hold of the window's corners, like silver cobwebs. Winter had finally arrived. The garden would be crisp cold, dew had turned to a small pellicle of ice over each leaf, each branch, making it glisten in the early light.  
  
A smile had curled on her face. "Ah'll keep this." _She still had the lighter in hand. She seemed carefree while she was with him. _Remy had tried to make her talk about the other morning's incident where she had nearly suffocated in her sleep. She'd refused to talk about Mystique.  
  
Of course, he could have used his kinetic powers to light his cigarette, but he didn't feel like it that morning. He didn't know why. Each time he would look down at his hands, he would feel dirty. They had killed willingly, and just lightening it, with those hands, seemed just... absurd. Maybe he was losing his head after all.  
  
He could hardly believe that Rogue... That she was the one that... Only she made him feel like a better man.  
  
"Gambit be going' fo' a spin." Remy tossed the lighter back to the Acolyte, chucking the cigarette away without lighting it up. "Need t' clear Remy's head before he loses his mind." He fished the keys out of his trenchcoat and ignited the engine. The motorcycle gave a gruff sound, before smoothing somewhat.  
  
"Just a question, there mate." St John ran his hand through his flaming hair, blue eyes looking up at his friend in concern. "I know you blokes just think I'm crazy. But, I got the impression you fancy that skunk sheila more than you really want to admit."  
  
Remy cocked an eyebrow. He would think twice about Pyro after this, the guy was more lucid than he seemed.  
  
"So?" St John asked. "Am I right?"  
  
Remy chuckled, leaving his friend rather perplex. The bike gave a roar, before Remy pulled out on the alleyway, disturbing the early silence of the Mansion's grounds. Pyro watched his friend drive away and through the large iron gates that had opened.  
  
"AM I RIGHT?" he yelled at the top of his lungs pulling his hands up in a cone to his mouth, half-laughing. Gambit's lack of response could only mean one thing. When Remy finally disappeared with that black bike of his, St John shivered. He clicked the lighter on, and pulled the flame out, forming a much larger ball of fire. "Hate these northern bloody winters," he muttered before going back inside.

ooooooooooo

The cold December wind whipped his auburn air back, his exposed skin pricking in that morning's chilly air. He missed the warmer and damper air of the bayou. The kind that made your skin shine half with sweat and water.  
  
He sped deliberately through a red light, ignoring the car honks that whipped through the air. The protestations were rapidly left behind (he's already way over speed limits) and out of earshot.  
  
How had it come down to this? He might have been trying to leave his thoughts about the X-men behind, but Rogue clung desperately to his mind. He had the impression it was spiralling out of control.  
  
He glanced ahead to the left, stirring out of the main road. The creamy walls Bayville High flashed past. It was still too early for even class. He hadn't checked the time before leaving. He tried to ignore the strange feeling that was eating away at his thoughts. Had it all started there? He remembered meeting Rogue outside those walls, at a corner, after have scared some boys out of their wits. No, it had started earlier.  
  
Buildings were growing, and he spotted something ahead that made him finally slow down. He drove up onto the pavement had stopped the growling engine with the turn off the key, silencing it. The Bank, or what was left of it stood before him. No, this wasn't the place where everything had started either. Before, much earlier.  
  
Red and white tape had been hung, stopping anyone approaching the Bank too much. The broken windows had been blotted it out with planks of wood. Can sprayed graphs had been drawn on the wall fractured with crevices. Remy could read one that said: "Liberate Mutants you freak Humans." This might have brought a grin to face, but right now he wasn't in the mood for it. A panel had been purposely put on the stairs that led up to the Bank's battered entrance, saying: "No trespassing."  
  
Gambit swung down of his motorbike to the pavement, fishing out sunglasses from his trench coat. The sun was no where to be seen behind the uniform grey clouds, but he had to be careful, his eyes had always been a matter of much distaste. Except for Rogue. She'd claimed, if she even remembered, that his eyes were what she preferred the most about him.  
  
It had started before he had ever met her. That woman had told him... and of course, at the time, he'd dismissed it, maybe even tried to run from it.  
  
Mist played with his breath, coming out of his half-open mouth in the cold air.  
  
He shivered slightly at the memory of his fight with Death. Remy remembered going about his plan, trying to recuperate something that had been owned by one of his close 'aunts'. Back in New Orleans, she'd been just like an aunt, caring. She would spoil him with her food. He would look over her pots and stir them for her. She'd sold it, why, he didn't know. But as present, for everything he owed her, he'd wanted to find it and return it.  
  
But Death had appeared from out of corner. And things had suddenly turned frantic The cold feeling of aging had being forced over his body, his sight deteriorated in a second. He'd had hardly been able to lift his staff against the blows Death had showered over him with his own weapon. . He could still remember the cold floor, the blurry visions, the pain in each and every limb.  
  
Remy shrugged it off. It was finished, hopefully. He still wondered why Death had left him alive. And then, she had appeared out of the dust, over him, her white bangs of hair falling over his face, her green eyes full of worry.  
  
Gambit's gaze slowly crossed the street. On the opposite side of the Bank was a small snack bar, where he had planned out his attack on the bank in the first place. Many unexpected things had come out of it, some bad, other surprisingly good.  
  
He made his way over to it. There was the twinkling of small bells as he opened the window-panelled door, just like last time. He sat at the far end booth, out of view of the usual customers. The place didn't seem to have changed much, the curtains were still filthy, not that it mattered to Gambit much. However, there was something new.  
  
In the far corner had been put up a modest sized television. It was, at that instant, playing the News. Remy watched it as the waitress approached him.  
  
"What will it be?" she asked checking him out. Her eyes twinkled fondly. It didn't escape Gambit, and, unconsciously he compared this woman to Rogue. She had everything except what he loved in Rogue. Spunk, lies she tried to hide, but always failed, a dangerous smirk and that little bit of insanity that he knew too well.  
  
Gambit settled for some black coffee, it seemed to fit his mood, someway.  
  
A baby started crying somewhere in another booth, accompanied with his mother's soothing words. His nerves starting to twitch uncomfortably, Remy reached out with his empathic abilities. The kid was scared. It didn't suit Remy good, and soon soothed things over, wrapping the child in an emotional blanket. The braying soon calmed down to hiccups.  
  
"Convention in SanFransico on Mutant Rights Friday the twentieth of December, this weekend..." an aged TV presenter was declaring on the early news. Gambit's ears picked up on this. "After the disastrous and unsuccessful strategy used for controlling rogue mutants, the summit will deal primly with the raise of budget for the National Security Department..." Gambit clenched his teeth, it had nothing to do with mutant rights, it was all a fake. Their aim was probably more precisely trying to keep any rights mutant could have at bay. Security... against mutants.  
  
He'd been so distracted by the News that he only noticed too late who'd entered the place.  
  
A man, aged in his late twenties with pale skin and dark hair was now approaching Gambit. Remy stiffened, fingering his cards inside his trenchcoat.  
  
Death sat facing Remy.  
  
"Lebeau, hardly a surprise..." his voice was crisp cold with a sharp edge to it. Remy didn't reply. Death's black eyes glinted amusingly from across the table.  
  
It was hardly a coincidence, the last time Gambit had met Death had only been across the street.  
  
"Ya keep gettin' de nack of poppin' up on Remy when ya not wanted," Gambit hissed through clenched teeth.

ooooooo

Psylocke had seen Gambit arrive, then stride away into the snack bar. She wondered if she was meant to feel something for the mutant. Pity? Definitively not. Worry? Never.  
  
Each mutant that had decided to work for Sinister knew there were more consequences than could meet the eye. Sinister made sure that those who searched his services just once, would sign a contract where their freedom would be taken. How had Gambit presumed that he'd escape Sinister? Fleeing with one of the Scientist's pet.  
  
Gambit had been foolish, and yet, Psylocke knew he would fight, by pride but also for a dream he thought maybe, just someway, could come true. Where, why did he try to hang on? By which hope he thought everything would return to normal?  
  
The wind tugged at her purple strands, her hair hiding her vision for just a second. She quickly pulled it back, and looked up at the roofs, where her companion hid from any prying eye.  
  
"_Is everything ready_?" Psylocke asked through her telepathic connection.  
  
A voice, very similar to Psylocke's own replied across the link: _"It's all in place. I'll be seen from miles around."  
_

oooooooo

_  
_"You... with Rogue? Did you really think it could work?" Death asked, a cup of tea sat between his bone like fingers on the table. "Why do you cling to her so? You're too young... my friend, things have escaped your notice."  
  
Gambit clenched his teeth so hard he was sure that Death could hear them gritting. The mutant hadn't attacked him yet with his powers... But Remy anticipated the cold chill that would soon tare his back.  
  
The black coffee had been served to Remy, but he hadn't touched it.  
  
"What..."  
  
"What do I want?" Death finished for Gambit, picking the cup up slowly, and taking a small sip of the warm liquid. "Nothing... It's Sinister this is all about, not what I want." He laid his skeleton fingers down against the surface of the wood. "Rogue and Sinister. No... not I."  
  
"Get to de point, Ol' Gambit ain't got de whole day fo' ya disposition," Gambit spat out, venom dripping from every word.  
  
Death looked around, seeming bored with the whole ordeal. "You've made a very, big, mistake, by taking Rogue... or what you think is Rogue."  
  
As on cue, the television flashed the picture of Rogue, then Psylocke, her left eye under her usual red tattoo. "... will be taken to court this afternoon for judgement. Most austere jurists will be expected to vote in favour of the Death Penalty..."  
  
Gambit had thought he'd killed Psylocke in that street, it seemed so long ago now. He'd seen her draw her last breath, and then... he'd found her all over the news, caught by a Sentinel after have destroyed and coldly killed a shopkeeper, if Gambit could remember correctly. If he had just stayed longer, making sure that Psylocke was... dead, maybe things would have turned out differently She just had to be gone, or, peharps...  
  
Gambit looked back at Death. Had he revived the Asian woman?  
  
"No," the mutant said. "It's not my doing... for once."  
  
"Get back to Rogue den," his own voice had turned to frost, while his eyes burned behind the sunglasses. He could feel the air getting warmer at each passing second.  
  
"Ah, yes... the mistake," Death repeated more to himself than to Remy. "Doesn't she seem unusually distant... let's say... different."  
  
Remy wanted to take his staff out right then and now and plunge it into Death's form. Sinister's doings would have changed anyone. He could still remember the image of Rogue's disfigured back, the scar that trailed down it. How it'd felt under his fingers, rough and wrong.  
  
"I must say... I, first, then Sinister were rather surprised the way things turned out. Rogue wasn't meant to live that long." He smiled showing a row of sharp teeth, everything but pleasant. "You see... it was all an experiment, and it's soon coming to an end."  
  
Remy glanced out between the dirty curtains onto the street and his bike that was still stood across. But someone caught his eye.  
  
She was standing sternly, her face void of any expression, her eyes vacant. She stared back at him.  
  
No! It was impossible. His head whirled back around to the television, his gaze then finally settling on Death's unnatural young, paste white face. Gambit had killed her once, in that alleyway, but then, she'd appeared on the News... and now, she was waiting for him outside at this instant.  
  
Remy jumped to his feet, and before anyone could blink, his staff was extended in his hand, Ace of diamonds burning pink the other. His cup of coffee had spilled and rolled off the table, shattering to the floor.  
  
Every head had snapped their heads towards the two mutants; their mouths open in surprise, eyes wide, not daring to move. The card fizzed with energy, the only sound now remaining in the restaurant, crackling and spitting pink flecks.  
  
Death glanced at the single card amusingly. "Lebeau, do you think one of your tricks will get you out of this mess?"  
  
"Not likely, homme..." With a single contact of the card against the curtains, the kinetic energy spread to the fabric making it glow dangerously. However it didn't stop there, flashing tendrils of pink licked the windowpane, twisting to the walls and beyond. "But dis will."  
  
But the customers were still rooted to the spot, immobile like statues. The waitress still had the tray in her hand, meatloaf steaming on a plate, and even the baby, sitting in his mother's arms didn't cry.  
  
Flames were bursting out of the synthetic material of the curtain from the pressure of Gambit's power, an acrid smell filled the place as the dark fumes curled upwards. Death had not moved an inch, however, his sly smile had faded from his ghostly face.  
  
"Run, ya darn fools!" Couldn't they see the danger? However, when Gambit's gaze fell on Death again, he quickly understood what had happened.  
  
"Psylocke is a telepath, not very strong, indeed, but enough to make these animals stay in harm's way. Lebeau, now, you could save your skin, destroy me, all in one go... isn't it tempting? But, would you let these people suffer the consequences?"  
  
From behind the sunglasses, Gambit's eyes blazed like two scorching embers.  
  
"If you prefer, I could kill them instead." he added with distaste. The bartender from behind the counter started withering in pain, his skin crawling, his eyes bulging horribly.  
  
The kinetic energy was slowly pulled back from the walls and curtains, back into the card. And with a slight fizzle, even that light went out, and with it, Remy's hope extinguished.  
  
Death nodded, Remy was inoffensive as much a mutant with deadly powers could be. He sat up. "Follow me, Lebeau."  
  
Remy could hear his heart beat loudly, trying to burst out of his chest. The same heart Rogue had listened to that morning. His head throbbed as he walked past the still customers. He knew he was throwing away his chance at freedom. He could have ended it there, he was sure, make the building crumble on their head, burn everything to ashes, flesh and bones. Was it worth it? He spared a glance at the child; a thumb in his mouth, blue eyes and chubby cheeks, clinging to his mother's top. He had just barely stopped crying.  
  
He couldn't take life away, not like this, not when their only mistake was being at the wrong place, at the wrong moment. And what would Rogue say if he had?  
  
The bells shimmed once more as the door was opened as the two mutants stepped out in the chilly morning air.  
  
People, about their usual business marched on both sides of the streets, cars passing by, heading for somewhere. An old lady, dressed in bright colours walking her white, fluffy dog, a man in suit, a briefcase at the end of his arm... None could have guessed the tragedy that was about to occur, their deaths only a minute away.  
  
"Remy, a pleasure." Psylocke stood just outside, contrasting deeply with all the normal people that walked the street. If it wasn't for the tattoo, it was just by the way she held herself. Stiff. Her hgufihg eyes bored down on him, but they looked, unusually empty.  
  
"Betsy, Remy thought he wouldn't see de day where ya walked the streets again... alive," he added for good measure, but no reaction nor emotion crossed her face.  
  
They slowly walked away from the restaurant, walking the pavement with the other humans. Death, seeming casual at their side. They headed across the street, Remy's staff hidden back in his trenchoat, but the Ace of diamonds still clutched in his hand.  
  
The mutants walked along, without anyone giving them a second glance, as if, a man with sunglasses in winter, an Asian woman with a red tattoo on her face, purple hair falling over her shoulders, and a sickly pale man were the usual assortment. It was probably a trick of Psylocke's telepathy.  
  
However, something was very wrong. Why had they come directly to him, and not Rogue, if it was her they wanted. This didn't make him feel relieved, knowing that they'd preferred to find him first. Death wouldn't have told him if it didn't suit his plans somehow. Rogue was safe, at the Mansion with the rest of the X-men. They would protect her. She was safe...  
  
And if he wasn't able to see her again... He pushed the dark thoughts away.  
  
Remy tried not to look back as they turned the corner. He could feel the deck of cards in sleeve, just waiting to be used, he'd show what pain meant ... However, Death stopped in his tracts, and searched for something in his overcoat. He slowly produced a small black box from its folds, a finger pressed against a red button. It clicked harmlessly.  
  
Gambit's eyes widened in horror.  
  
"NO!" his words were covered by the sudden eruption on noise and flame. The street they'd just left exploded with a fire, the building crumbled like a tower of cards, the explosion taking it down effortless. Every window shattered under the force, raining down over the street. Vehicles and people alike were picked up from the ground, pulled apart like rag dolls. The luckiest had fallen to the ground, covering their heads in protection. Car breaks screeched, tires smoking against the tarmac.  
  
"What is it you usually say, Lebeau?" Death smiled, facing Gambit. "Luck doesn't last."  
  
Remy breathed hard, winded, the side card seeming sharper against the flesh of his palm. The smell of burning filled his nostrils. It was all too real. The cold was gone, replaced by boiling rage. "Remy says ya all get to go to Hell."

* * *

3667 words for an Update! I've made it! I've finally updated! Few... Now, I can't even count the number of versions of this one had, but... I've updated! After writer's block after writer's block, I have finally found how all these chapters could finally make sense (do they usually make sense? They might start now) For, I think, one day, I'll be able to put down the words: 'The End.' Yes, after 21 chapters of going one way and another, without really knowing where I was heading, I know how this story can reach it's conclusion.  
  
While we wait until that time (it's no where soon), I'll answer some wonderful reviews that motivated me on, stopping me from just leaving the story like this for ever (I re-read the old chapters, and kept wincing here and there. It'll need some cleansing! But that can wait.)  
  
Sarah Crysala: Sorry again... but after a couple months of absence, I'm back on track. ;)  
  
AngstWolf: Rogue might becoming dark, and I'm not even sure if it's a happy ending, well, Rogue and Remy, will survive, for sure, and I just can't see myself kill Kitty, Kurt or Wolverine. Rogue is going to be real angry in a couple of chapters.  
  
Ankle: like the complexity of dual Remy? Well, wait and see Rogue's rather big problem! Oh boy, she's gonna suffer (I feel mean).  
  
T: there might be "more" Mystique (kind of hint I suppose) not that what I say usually has sense. I cut from Mystique to Remy (I was missing him). But I'll come back to her, very soon.  
  
Plague: that's the whole problem, Remy "seems" to have REAL feelings for Rogue, but he's using her for something too, which I can't tell you yet. (So basically, I'm not much help. It's coming soon.)  
  
Ishandahalf: Update! UPDATE! I made it! Finally got over the writer's block (summer holidays really do some good)  
  
And many thanks to Gothic Cajun and Spectra 2 too. Boy, I just loooove reviews! You keep them coming, and the chapter are just going to pop up sooner than you expect. 


	23. Forgetting to Breathe only mortal

Forgetting to breathe (only mortal)  
  
Hands are what make a man. they build, they write, they hold a child, they caress, they punch, they soothe and cure. And his killed. It seemed as if they would taint whatever they would touch from that moment on. Watch a man's hands, and you can see right into his soul.  
  
Rogue took his hands away from his lap, holding them tight. "Ya okay sugah? Ah thought ya might stay on that pavement for good." Remy peered into her eyes, those green orbs full of concern, just for him. Her skin was soft in his touch, warm in his hands.  
  
"Remy will be up from dis bed in no time," he said with smirk. A thief is always good at lying. How could things ever be alright?  
  
Earlier that day.  
  
Where to start?  
  
Maybe in that street, where we left Remy to defend his life. Or at the Mansion, where Rogue had just got up, walking the corridors and down to the kitchen for breakfast. Or maybe with Logan in the Danger Room, trying out his nerves on a new session. Or again, the Professor in his study, who was discussing with his mutant friend Beast before he caught on to something disturbing. What ever way it started, each thread will lead to the other, and together they'll spin the web of Destiny.  
  
"Henry, can I call you back. I need to check Cerebro, something is amiss. I have a strange feeling on my mind."  
  
Henry McCoy's deep voice came out from the phone. "Please do so, Charles. I still need to pack a few things before I leave. I'm heading out in an hour. I'll call from the airport. We can never too careful."  
  
"Good. We'll see you tonight, then, my friend. Take care util then."  
  
Charles Xavier hung up, a puzzled expression on his face. Something needed his attention; he could faintly hear some sort of cries a long way away from the Mansion. He calmly put his papers away before wheeled himself out of his study and into the Victorian corridor.  
  
"Good Morning Professor!" Kitty Pride greeted, beaming, "Coming down for breakfast with us?" She was still in her pyjamas, looking a little sleepy.  
  
Xavier shook his head. "Maybe another time Kitty. I need to check Cerebro urgently," he replied still making his way down to the lift that would take him down to the lower levels. "You should hurry up."  
  
"Can I, like, come with you?" Kitty asked, looking a little worried with the Professor's own expression. She'd followed him down.  
  
"Don't worry, an Old Man can still go about on his own. You have to hurry up for school," he told her good naturally, giving her a warm smile in appreciation.  
  
Kitty was about to say he wasn't old, but now he mentioned school. "Oh, yeah." Kitty pinched her lips, only remembering now that she needed to be off soon, her eyes wondering away as she thought about the day ahead. "Right, school," she said leaving the professor in with her thinking.  
  
The Professor watched her walk off, her spirit carefree, except for a science essay she had forgotten to complete over the weekend. He pushed the button calling for the lift and waited patiently for it to arrive.  
  
Logan wiped the dripping sweat from his forehead with a small towel as he left the Danger Room for the lockers. His hair clung wet to his skin and he wrapped the towel around his neck.  
  
"Good morning t' ya, Charles. Got nothing new?" he asked as the Professor came out of the lift at the end of the shining white corridor.  
  
"Good Morning Logan. Beast will be arriving tonight, at seven thirty," Xavier said serenely.  
  
"Good, found something, has he?" Logan walked at the side of the Professor that was making his way down to Cerebro. "He found out what was stolen?" They had refused to talk about this in front of the kids, there were things they didn't need to know.  
  
Beast had infiltrated the R.U.N laboratory shortly after an important mutant attack had been directed on it. The affair had been surprisingly hushed by the government, even more so when elected representative were searching for any excuse to accuse mutants. No information to the press was leaked.  
  
"Yes, and I'm afraid it isn't good news, Logan." Xavier paused in front of Cerebro's entrance, turning to face his friend. "An scientist, with a rather bad reputation, seems behind all this." The Professor held his chin his hand in thought. "At the beginning of September as we tried to stop Mesmero from releasing Apocalypse, this scientist tried to procure himself with a most unusual toxin, called Gemini X32, but had his request refused."  
  
"So, the Doc sent a mutant to steal it?" Logan asked scratching his morning beard in thought. "What worries me most, Wheels, is that the bub wanted it that bad."  
  
The Professor turned back towards the massive steal doors. "Yes, it worries me even more, Logan, that the toxin tightly related to human cloning experiments."  
  
"Good Morning Charles," a feminine voice spoke out as Cerebro took a retinal scan from Xavier. The computer slid the metallic door open, letting the Professor roll out on the bridge that led the heart of Cerebro itself. Bluish lights were switched on as he advanced along, lighting the spherical room up with a cold hue, the metallic sheets set around the room reflecting it softly.  
  
"Charles, I gotta ask ya," Logan said walking up behind the Professor into the room. "I think Rogue needs some air, outta the Mansion, for her good, and away from the Acolyte Gambit."  
  
"You worry about her deeply."  
  
"Course I do," Logan barked out. "Gambit is a thief, a criminal. He's always around her, can always smell his tobacco breath itched somewhere on her. And I'm gonna slit his throat if he continues." On cue, he released his adamantium claws with a 'SNIT', his fist clenched. "Bucket head will just have t' do without him."  
  
"Magneto might not approve your rash action on his employee."  
  
Logan put the deadly blades away, sliding them back in his forearms. "Remind me why we keep his goons in the Mansion?"  
  
"I proposed," Xavier told Logan reaching out for the metallic cask that would enable his telepathic powers more range. "So we could keep a better eye on his doings, and maybe, enable the Acolytes to familiarise with the X- men, and, in the end, join us." He let it fall over his bald head and started switching it on, the device lightly humming.  
  
"Yeah," Logan scoffed. "Anyway, I'll be taking Rogue out this week, as she doesn't have school anymore, maybe I can actually make real progress in hand to hand combat..."  
  
"Rogue might have been expelled of Bayville High, but I intend to teach her the basics myself, and Ororo has agreed to go over her French and History, you may take her for Physical Education class, if you so wish."  
  
"PE, you mean," Logan scoffed, wiping his forehead with the towel once more. He was about to add something the door to Cerebro slid shut, the lights dimming. "All she needs to do is zapp us with her powers to know the stuff," he reckoned.  
  
"I would prefer that she learns like the other students her age. Please don't move, Logan," the Professor instructed. "And as for Mystique in her mind, the more she is around us, the faster we will able to come to her aid if the necessity arises," he continued on. A couple of metallic sheets were now shifting across the room rapidly.  
  
"Right on Wheels, but I was thinking more about some kind of excursion for the Kid..." Logan trailed off, something was wrong, he could smell it off the Professor. "What's up?" Xavier was tensing up, not his usual pose.  
  
"An attack, down town," the Professor replied, his voice suddenly solemn.

ooooooo

Remy didn't feel the freezing air, nor the sharp pain in his chest from where blood was now seeping. His staff tight in his grasp, he made it fly over his head and towards his attacker. His eyes burnt like torches, his fingers sending courses of energy at anything that touched them.  
  
However, he saw Psylocke's foot shooting towards him too late, and it connected with his chest. He went sprawling backwards in some trash that had been left in the street. This didn't slow him down, on the contrary.  
  
Gripping a broken chair's foot, he sent it, sparkling pink at Psylocke right between the eyes. She gasped and only avoided it by a graceful flip backwards. The street behind her exploded with light. Remy was glad to see that she staggered to regain her balance from the blast, and took his advantage.  
  
Thrusting the end of the staff down in the ground, he lifted his body, sending his boot right in her face. Her body jerked away from the blow, falling to the ground. Remy didn't have time to contemplate her bloodied face, or her deadly glare. He didn't stop there, though, as he lifted his staff, and brought it's point towards her lying form.  
  
She rolled away just in time, the staff creating sparks as it hit the street's floor.  
  
Her own pink energy blades in hand now, she swung them merciless towards Gambit's form. His staff, however, struck her arms away.  
  
Death watched, a silver watch in hand, looking down at it every so often, still in his twenty year old form. He hadn't even used his powers yet, he was never for rash decisions. They couldn't be far away now. He glanced back up only in time to see three fiery cards released from Gambit's hand, shooting towards him.  
  
Without another minute's hesitation, he brought his pale hand up, his fingers spread out.  
  
Barely an inch away, the cards suddenly turned to dust, the energy that had contained them blinking out. Death hissed, it had been a close call. He was rather glad that Psylocke was taking care of the thief for the mean time. However, he felt a slight excitement course through him when it would be his turn. None could resist his power. But not yet... his time would soon come.  
  
He winced a little, when he saw Psylocke's psychic blade slice through Gambit's arm, releasing his grip ever so slightly on his staff. Psylocke kicked it out his hand. It clattered away to the ground.  
  
"They're late," Death said aloud, closing his watch shut with 'CLIP'. He hid it in the folds of his black overcoat. "Try to not dispose of him too quickly, Psylocke, we need him alive for the moment." With these last words, he slipped away, leaving the two mutants in their deadly fight.  
  
Before Psylocke knew it, Gambit had grabbed the front of her coat, and his kinetic energy had taken hold of the whole material. His scarlet pupils coursing with fire. Her own eyes became round when realisation hit her, her mouth open in a silent but useless protest.  
  
Remy didn't spare her another glance, still in his momentum, with a circular movement, he thrust her away as far as possible, her body flying through the air. She was dead before she hit the ground.  
  
Gambit eyes looked the opposite way, his back turned on the sight. He stood stoic, pushing the sounds and other senses away. He didn't want to feel. It quickly sunk in what he had done, and he didn't dare look behind, afraid of what he would see.  
  
He slowly turned around, looking down on what was left of the mutant Psylocke. He seemed to forget to breathe at that instant.  
  
The sound of a jet was now covering everything, and Gambit was forced to look up to the grey sky.  
  
"Putain de merde," were the only words that escaped his lips. The X-jet was presently hovering over the nearby buildings. This is all about Rogue and Sinister, not I.  
  
Rogue was safe, at the Mansion, protected by the other mutants, but not if she was here right now, in that jet, ready to jump down into the grasps of Death.  
  
It had been a trap all along, a lure to make the X-men come out, where they would split out; where Rogue would be the most vulnerable.  
  
Gambit was taken out of his thoughts, for a form dropped from a balcony above, bracing itself against her fall, cat like. Cold eyes peered between purple locks, her psychic blades in hand once more.  
  
"This isn't finished, Gambit."  
  
Remy didn't have time to register what was happening before pink psychic blades plunged in his skull from another form that had crept up on him, from behind. 

oooooooooo

Rogue inserted the piece of technology in her ear, pushing her hair away as she did so, then pulling her black gloves on quickly, the tips of her fingers still left bare. She was wearing her new uniform, however, she'd had no time to contemplate it. She strapped the image inducer to her wrist, and programmed it. Her appearance changed from the Goth to the one of a light haired freckled girl.  
  
Worry was slowly creeping up on her, she didn't want to show that she was concerned for the Cajun... Worried what was about to happen, worried for Gambit that was somewhere out there. But she pushed them back, and looked up at Logan at the front of the Jet, instructing them on some last details.  
  
"Hey, Rogue, I can always phase you if something goes wrong," Psyche Kitty offered.  
  
"N' blow somethin' up," Psyche Remy added. Rogue could feel a smirk in his voice (if psyche do smirk)  
  
"If you feel, at any time, that you're facing too much for ya, retreat immediately. Don't fool around by trying to be heroes. Understood Kids?" He pulled out his own device, a microphone, putting the ear piece in place, he tapped it a couple of times, making sure it worked. "One two three, checking... checking."  
  
"... Checking." Rogue heard his voice in her own ear, as if he was just next to her.  
  
"Any questions?" he asked, looking over the heads in the Jet. Jubilee was wearing that flashing pink lipstick again, he noted. Kitty was peering up at him expectantly at the side of Jean, both seated right at the front.  
  
"Dude, don't we get lunchboxes with those ear pieces?" Pyro asked from the back. Logan rolled his eyes as he heard Cyclops gritting his teeth from next to Iceman, gripping the side of the seat.  
  
"Just be glad that I don't throw ya off the jet, glow worm. Nightcrwler should be back any time now..."  
  
On cue the air was suddenly filled with the smell of brimstone, Nightcrawler teleporting in the aisle. "Ze four poles are up, Mr Logan."  
  
"Okay, we're off then..." Logan paused before saying, "Good luck Kids."  
  
Ororo at the commands of the Jet, made the plane veer to the left, slowly lowering it to the ground. There was a loud noise of the hovers igniting as the door fell open. Logan and Cyclops were the first to jump to the ground. Scott had his hand to his blasters, however his hand stilled as he surveyed the scene.  
  
To his left, a whole house had been torn apart, flames were still licking the stone, smoke raising in the cold air. People were littered across the street. Two cars had run one into the other, and they were still blazing red, doors laying several meters away from the burning carcasses.  
  
"Iceman, see to the fires!" Cyclops yelled over beating sound of the jet. He left way for Bobby in his ice form, quickly extinguished any flame, his arms raised, threads of cold leaving a trail of frost behind.  
  
The girls jumped down behind them, Jubilee rushed to the side of an old woman, checking for a pulse, asking her, at the top of her lungs, if she could hear her. Jean had ha hand against her temples, scanning the whole area with her telepathy, and with her other hand raising people softly from the ground, making them hover towards the jet, and inside onto beds. Colossus was gently lifting people into his arms, taking them inside as well, while Nightcrawler teleported all over the street, leaving black smoke in his wake.  
  
Meanwhile, Logan had split up the Kids. But before Rogue could leave with Magma, he had caught her arms, lifting the microphone away from his mouth.  
  
"Rogue, be careful." He usual gruff voice was gone, replaced by a fatherly tone. His eyes held concern for the younger mutant. "Can you... would ya absorb me if I asked ya?"  
  
The question took her aback, and unconsciously, she took a step back, away from the older mutant. "Logan, Ah'm not a kid. Ah can take care of mahself. " It was useless, she knew that after the previous days' events, Mystique's attack, the Sentinel, her breakdown in the Danger room, he was worried for her. She hated it.  
  
"Ya always had to go through more than the average. But if ya can control the powers ya absorb, I want ya to have mine. Know I can't always be there to protect ya, Rogue..." 

ooooooo

Rogue left with Magma one way, as Logan went in another direction accompanied with Kitty, while Iceman and Cannonball going North.  
  
"Ya see the mutant, ya inform the others and we regroup," Logan's voice echoed in their ears. "Don't try anything else."  
  
"So, this is it," Magma said as Rogue and she went down a street, inspecting it carefully, leaving the Jet and their fellow X-men behind. Flames danced across her arms, her eyes had turned to a fiery orange. "Gambit and some mutant are fighting out here somewhere. And what are we meant to do?"  
  
Rogue felt her temper rise. "Weh inform the others. Now shut up, will ya?" Didn't the darling princess remember they were trying to be discreet?  
  
"Don't get all Scott like on me, Rogue." Rogue whipped around, facing the younger mutant, her green eyes flashing dangerously. "You go missing a month and pop back up like nothing has changed," Amara went on.  
  
"Sugah, if Ah was Scott," Rogue hissed. "Ah would have given ya some Danger Room sessions. But Ah'll be the punching ya in the fahce." She didn't know where the anger was coming from. Rogue knew that Magma didn't deserve her wrath. They were losing time, didn't Amara see this? Something told her that Gambit might be in more trouble than anyone knew about.  
  
She felt her insides curl as she spotted the building when she'd jumped down on the X-Jet. The Bank, where she'd first met Death, stood not far away. She'd shivered at that thought. Was it only a coincidence that the attack had been targeted here, of all places?  
  
Amara glared back, Rogue had remembered her more timid before she'd left. "You can't punch me, you'd get your fist smothered," she reminded Rogue snidely.  
  
Rogue nearly laughed to herself, did Magma think her inoffensive? If only she new. Her gaze slowly rose to the sky and the roofs. Something was up there. They continued on through street, until Rogue decided to take things her way.  
  
Metal screeched as she pulling down an iron ladder from a balcony. Two by two she climbed it, rattling under her weight as she went up. "Continue down there, Ah'm going up fo' a bette' look."  
  
Magma shrugged, refusing to talk to the Goth, walking away.  
  
Rogue climbed the next ladder that went from the first balcony to the second, until she reached the last floor, climbing the metal bars stuck in the dusty red brick wall, last ascent to the top. She finally jumped over the railing and onto the roof. The wind up here was colder, and it bit her skin without mercy, wiping tendrils of white and auburn hair across her pale face, only, they appeared as light coloured bangs with the image inducer. Her eyes surveyed the view. Smoke was still slowly rising from the nearby street, joining the grey canopy of the sky above.  
  
She shivered, but not from the cold. She wasn't alone on the roof. Her back turned towards Death, she glanced around at him, only slightly turning her head. It was enough to make out the looming figure of Death.  
  
Was it even safe to breathe? "Can Ah help ya?" Rogue asked, her voice harsh to her own ears.

* * *

Tadaa! Another chapter! I'm reeealy overdoing myself, well, not really, actually. Anyway, the point is I managed to update in less than a week, which is record. This is actually a kind of second part/continuation of the previous chapter. And they'll be a third part, explaining the small bit at the beginning of this chapter (got that?)  
  
Thanks so much for the reviews, always always appreciated. Remarks, questions, pointing out my awful syntax and grammar are all welcome! Anything really that can get this story going on for the best.  
  
It's kinda late here in France, so i'll leave replying to reviews for another time (yawn yawn). Good night to you all.  
  
Update:  
  
IvyZoe: you suddenly made me doubt. But no, you read well. Death speaks of a mistake, clones of Psylocke are running about (seems Sinister got his personal army after all), and we might suppose that, rogue is in fact... not really Rogue. But we'll find that out a little later on. Oh, don't worry, Remy doesn't feel dirty because of his hands, but because he used them (and his power) to kill. So just lighting a cigarette with his powers, after have killed someone is just, sick. Imagine, you've got this knife, you killed someone with it, and then you chop carrots up a day later with it. That kind of sick.  
  
MsRogueLeBeau: That's the spirit!  
  
Rogue's tale: it takes four hours to read it? Really? I'm glad you're hooked up. Fortunately, or Unfortunately, actually, Remy is not going to be framed, but he is going to be beat up a hell of a lot. Sighs.  
  
Star of Chaos: Sinister has been playing with powers above him, just wait and see when Apocalypse will be pointing the end of his crooked nose......  
  
Crysala: another nice review! Stay tuned it! ;  
  
Ishandahalf : he blows up the cafe, but after if goes and kills Psylocke (one of them anyway) in a kind of gore way. But well, it was his life or hers.

Thanks again, already working on the next chapter.


	24. Need your opinion for future chapters

Of course, thanks for the reviews! I'll reply to them when i put the next chapter up.

oo

First. After last chapter, do you think that I should put my rating a little higher to be safe? Psylocke's death was rather, mh... rough, but I didn't go into BIG details. So, what do you think? R, meaning 17 and above, just seems too high.

Second, I've come to a unexpected decision. I was actually finishing up the next chapter, when... I stopped, I couldn't go further (the chapter is almost ready,). I had two choices:  
  
1....Rogue gets killed by Death.

2....Rogue's only barely misses getting beaten up to a bloody pulp by Death, and survives (until next time).  
  
In both cases, I can come to the same kind of end. Don't worry, though, Gambit always survives some way (I don't have the heart to finish him off). And Rogue, well, I suppose you've rather guessed after Death's discussion with Remy; you probably already know what's up with Rogue and what I have in store for her, no? (well, I suppose so.) Rogue WILL end up living happely everafter in this story, no mater what.   
  
As I'm writing, primly for my own enjoyment, but MOST importantly, for YOURS, YOU get to choose which way I must head along with this fic (between choice one and two,that is... and if ou want it to continue, maybe someway else, jsut tel me).  
  
Well, I'm waiting for your replies (I think I would like Rogue to survive, killing her might just brake Remy's heart.... / sigh.)

PS: changed the summary to concrete road, what do u think?


	25. Crossing Death

Warning, for characters' death (I 'm not saying who) and some rough action.

Time always seems to fly by

Years all gone in a second

A lifetime lived in a day

Tic Toc,

The clock is ticking away...

And when you'll feel tired,

Feel the age, aches and pains all inside

Oh, Death will be there, at your side.

Tic. Toc.

And take your life away, he will,

Take it and hide it with lock.

You might cry out,

Call for friends and shout.

Tic Toc

That is how your clock will stop.

Thoughts and memories all gone astray.

Oh, your life is already far far away,

Time, you see, always seems to fly away,

Years all gone in a second,

A lifetime lived in a day,

Tic Toc,

That is how the clock ticks away...

(it's a song, nursery rime style, try imagining some kind of merry tune with it)

oooooooo

"Can Ah help ya?" Rogue's voice rang out over the roof towards the dark figure of Death. However, her voice had a harsh tune to it, and was replaced, with the help of the same image inducer on her wrist that hid her real features, by a voice devoid of any accent. "Can I help you?" is what the Death heard.

Rogue's breath hit the air with mist, her eyes still intent on the other mutant, slowly but surely she turned towards him, squaring her shoulders.

"Yes, in fact you may," he said, his head cocked to one side, watching the young woman that stood in front of him. His eyes searched her face and sandy coloured hair for recognition. "I don't think I know you..." he whispered more to himself than to Rogue. "But that can be remedied quickly." A sly smile spread out as he said this.

"Sorry to say," Rogue said, her words dripping with sarcasm. "But I think I'll pass."

It may not seem so, but Rogue's heart was racing. It was the first time she had heard Death speak to her directly, last time had been in riddle, a dark nursery rime. It still chilled her to the bone thinking about it. She felt the cold sweat forming on her forehead. Clenching her hands in fists, she tried to stop them from trembling.

Rogue knew it deep down this was Death, although he seemed to be cloakless, and his face unnaturally young. He wore an overcoat instead, and his eyes were un-doubtfully alive and staring at her like two black pools.

His smile hadn't dropped. "You seem timid," he declared, seeming casual, however, his dark eyes glinted maliciously. "You're an X-man, a young mutant... now, I'm curious to know what kind of powers you have." Saying this, he grabbed something from inside his overcoat, producing a shining white rod, which he held out in his hand. With an audible click, it extended into a bo-staff.

Rogue was still frozen in the same place. She wanted to run and hide, but now, she had a chance to affront him, whoever Death was, for whomever he worked for, Sinister or anyone esle. A little confidence finally warming her heart, she placed her hands on her hips.

"I don't really think this is, like, a very good idea, Rogue. Just one word, and I phase you right through the roof." By Kitty's psyche's voice, she was more than uneasy with the whole situation. "Plus, really, he should know that with a pale complexion, you just DON'T wear black..." she said with her usual mannerisms. She wasn't realising in what danger Rogue was presently in.

"Remy ain't a coward, but maybe chere should take Kitty's advice and slip through... while we're still alive, dat is."

Rogue sniffed the air, Death smelt like danger, an unhealthy mix of insanity and expensive eau-de-cologne. It was with Logan's help and heightened senses that she'd felt Death's presence on the roof tops. Finding an excuse to leave Amara out of harm's way, Rogue had headed here so she could deal with whatever threat the hidden mutant could pose. It's when the unnatural shill hit her that she guessed who it was. Never would she forget it.

Death's smile faded, turning into a mad grin, his lower lip drooping as his skin suddenly became lax around his chin and eyes, the latest turning to a sickly white.

Rogue lifted her chin in defiance, her green eyes sparkling dangerously. Unknown to Death, Rogue had acquired a new psyche, under the form of Logan.

"_Ya always had to go through more than the average. But if ya can control the powers ya absorb, I want ya to have mine. Know I can't always be there to protect ya, Rogue..." Logan paused as if it was taking a lot out of him to say these words. "Stripes," he added, his fingers brushing a white strand of hair away from the front of her face. _

_Rogue looked up at him, it was un-doubtfully concern she was seeing in his eyes. And that moment, she felt loved in a way that Mystique had never really offered, that Irene had never really been able to fulfil completely. He trusted her blindly, but always worried like a true parent._

"_I know ya prefer to not tell me some stuff, to the old grumpy man that I am. I trust ya, right? Then trust me."_

_He brought her close, wrapping his large arms around her small form, giving what was unmistakably a strong-armed hug. Rogue didn't know how to react to this. And gently, he kissed her bare forehead, it was only a small contact, but it was enough._

"Stripes, make the bloke regret he ever crossed yer path," Wolverine psyche declared. "See what we can do."

"Maybe I can show you first handed, then," Rogue told him.

ooooooo

Gambit recovered quickly from the blast of the psychic blade which had stabbed him through the skull. Gripping Psylocke's arm, he thrust her over his shoulder, slamming her body down on the street's floor. Taking a step back, he looked down at was unbelievably the mutant Psylocke, then up to the same and yet different form, that was quickly approaching ahead, ready to charge him with her pink blades sizzling. There were clones, it was the only explanation.

Meanwhile, the Psylocke on the ground was quickly regaining her senses, her eyes deadly intent on Gambit who once more had his red bo staff in hand.

Remy delivered a blow to Pyslocke's stomach before sending his staff in the direction of the second Psylocke, swiping as she raised her head. She went sprawling once more, her face bloodied by the strike. Gambit swung his staff back at the other clone, driving his attention back towards her. It hissed as it sliced through the air.

Her face scrunched up in rage, she leapt away from Gambit's attack, his bo staff hitting the floor instead with a loud CRACK. But out of nowhere, cards started flying out of his hand again, speeding away like red comets, a trail of energy behind as they flew.

Flexing her legs, she leapt up in the air, somersaulting over the charged cards, letting them fly behind her before she fell back to the street. She landed crouched, her arms spread out before her to brace her fall. Purple locks hiding her expression, she lunged for Gambit, a tormented cry escaping her wide open lips.

Gambit fenced off her attack, parrying her arms and hands, which were still holding the psychic blades. He thrust them away from his face. side-stepping her next move, he ducked as she swung her blades at him once more, still trying to impel them in his skull.

Remy's own ears rung from the stab he'd received from Psylocke earlier. The fight, however, was turning frantic. He had to find Rogue someway, warn her. If what Death said was true, he would stop at nothing to get her.

Gambit sprung onto a crate, then jumped onto the top of a large rubbish bin. After have sent the charged cards he could spare down on the street, raining it with explosions, he gripped the drainpipe that rose up to the roofs and higher-up balconies. Heaving himself up, he skilfully climbed it, his gloved hands gripping the metal while his feet pushed against the brick wall, using the crevasses there to his advantage, steadying his hold.

Remy spared a glance down.

Psylocke was at his pursuit, down bellow she tried to wrench the pipe out of the wall, sending dangerous tremors along it. She soon abandoned, and climbed up at her turn. Her eyes didn't make Remy at ease. They were large, an insane flicker in her pupils that had never been like Psylocke as he used to know her.

Further away in the street, the other Psylocke was still on the ground. He'd delivered a violent blow to her head with his staff, and she was presently holding her face in her hands, blood spilling to the street, gurgling in her own liquids, whimpering in pain. And the other clone, still smoking, completely still.......

The drainpipe shuddered and jerked under his grip with the other Psylocke's clone's weight added upon it, from meters down bellow.

Taking hold of the ledge of the roof, he swung over it and onto the top of the building. No sooner he'd stepped over, he was tackled to the floor brutally, his back slammed down hard against the gravel. Sharp blades were held to his neck, but not those that he'd expected. A gruff looking face peered down on him instead of Psylockes' tortured features.

"Gumbo, ya're in trouble bub," Wolverine growled down on him in his orange and brown suit. Logan expressly didn't mention from who the trouble was from; him or Psylocke.

"Get ya paws off Remy, homme," Remy gritted, pushing the blades away with more force than he had really left. He was starting to feel weak, but wouldn't confess to the older man that he was actually glad to see him. "Remy's not in flirting right now."

"Remy? What, like happened to you?" Kitty's worried voice drifted over. Shadowcat approached, looking up at him with her large blue eyes, as if she expected to see Remy suddenly fall unconscious on the spot. Her cheeks were rosy pink from the cold.

"Nothing, p'tite Rogue's in danger. Dere's a powerful mutant afte' chere." The words came out in a rush, but his gaze was suddenly adverted to where he'd climbed over onto the roof. Before Wolverine or Shadowcat could stop him, he rushed over to the spot and looked down over he railing.

Remy stifled a gasp. Gone were Psylocke and her wounded clone. The street was empty of their presence, only evidence that a fight had taken place were the burnt trash, scorched marks from Gambit's own powers and a puddle of scarlet blood. Except, except the crumpled form of the clone he had actually charged, still smocking on the ground.

He felt nausea hitting his senses in larges waves, the surroundings suddenly swimming around him.

Logan followed him to the edge, glancing down on the street. He was quick to put two and two together. He suddenly had him in his grip, grasping both sides of his trenchcoat, shaking Gambit as if he was weightless. "Ya're in BIG trouble, gumbo." The thief smelt death, like the street bellow. Carbonised flesh and death. Gambit had delivered a killing blow with his powers, and Wolverine was well aware of it. "What's happened to Stripes? What mutant?" he yelled, holding him up several inches off the ground.

"Logan! Stop!" Kitty came to Gambit's defence, her hands on Logan's arms. "He's hurt!"

"Me fine, now if yeh all could listen." It was only at that moment that Remy realised that he had a gash in his chest, bleeding profoundly.

When had that happened? He couldn't seem to remember being hit. When he'd fought Psylocke, nothing had counted to him, except bringing her down while everything else had been blocked out. His civil wear he'd gone out with that morning and his trenchcoat were starting to get soaked up in his own blood. But now that he saw the wound, it was starting to feel real. Pain started to course through his chest as he came to realisation that he'd actually been injured.

"Dis isn't de time for tea!" Gambit shouted back, using one of Pyro's favourite lines, trying to push the burning sensation away. But any strength left was quickly slipping away. "Chere needs t' be saved. Where did she go?"

Logan let him go without pretence. "I'll see to that- you're gotta get outta of here." Saying this, he fiddled with the microphone that hung from his ear and down to his mouth. "Rogue, Rogue! Do ya hear me? Is everything alright? Do ya copy that?" His face became suddenly stricken. "Magma, is Rogue with ya?"

Kitty was biting her nails worriedly, having completely forgotten about Gambit all together. "Is she there? Is she all right?"

Remy looked at the stout man with anticipation, holding his breath. If Rogue didn't reply Logan, if she'd already been taken, he wouldn't be able to forgive himself. If she'd been taken again, back to Sinister and his experiments...

"Damn, Volcano girl says that they parted ways some time ago," he told them. "I'll get her, ya two get to X-Jet." Kitty was about to protest- "NOW!" Logan shouted.

"This way, Gambit," Kitty instructed Remy, but he refused to cooperate, he wasn't going to let Logan go on his own to save his chere. Wolverine didn't know what kind of mutants he would be handling with. He had to be there.

"Remy's going with ya-"

"No ya don't, bub," Wolverine growled. "Ya're leaving- for good. Ya going to be locked up for what ya did."

Remy tried to straighten up, what was Logan talking about? His thoughts had turned to a jumbled mess while the pain in his chest was actually becoming unbearable. A groan escape his lips. Logan couldn't be fooled, and Gambit was not ready to back down.

He decided that he wouldn't waste any more minutes on this roof.

Before Remy could respond, a right hook came flying towards his head, striking him right between the eyes.

Gambit slumped to the roof's top, unconscious. "That should stop him from following," Logan stated. "Shadowcat, call for Nightcrawler. If he tries to escape, knock him out again."

"You punched him!" Kitty yelled, crouching down next to Gambit. "He's gonna die!"

"No he won't," Logan said confidently. "If I'd wanted to kill him, it's not my fist I'd use: I would have gutted him properly." He added under his breath, looking down on Remy's now still form. He was living all right. Next time he'd wake up, it'd be in a cell for what he did. Proof again, Magneto's lackeys were no angels.

Logan soon came into contact with Professor X, who'd stayed at the Mansion, using Cerebro's technology and his own strengthened telepathy to direct their moves. "Heard that, Chuck? Give me Rogue's position," Logan said through the microphone.

oooooooo

Rogue barely avoided getting knocked to ground with Death's staff, as it whizzed over her head just inches away. Her hands balled into fists, she planted some of her own hard punches to Death's unprotected side after have phased right through his staff that passed into her stomach harmlessly.

Rogue didn't show it, but she was terrified. She thought she was imagining things, but she seemed to be hearing the slow ring of large bells, echoing continuously through her head. In fact it was her heart, banging against her chest as if there was no tomorrow. She gasped for oxygen as she escape Death's next move, his staff grazing her shoulder.

It was somehow getting harder to breathe, and she wasn't the only one to realise this.

"You should have fallen like a fly a long time ago," Death hissed through his teeth as he launched his next attack, shoving his staff towards Rogue's small figure once again. "Withering in pain on the ground like a worm, you should be. Dying in a second."

Raw flesh was now hanging from his face, his eyes now deep gashes in his skulls, pupils missing. Two holes devoid of any gaze replaced them. Rogue nearly cheered as she thought she saw an infinite sign of fatigue. Wolverine's healing power seemed to be a match to Death's own detoriating abilities. However, she wasn't faring well either.

Suddenly she phased right though the gravel covered floor of the roof. Death looked about, dumfounded, his head whipping side to side, waiting for her to reappear. Before he had time to register, Rogue resurfacing up from beneath and tripped him.

Her victory was short lived. Death managed to steady himself with his staff and struck her in the head with his boot. Rogue's head jerked back painfully, sending her stumbling away. She slowly picked herself up, Death not seeming to make another offensive move towards her. He was actually looking at her curiously, with those dark holes for eyes.

She felt pain swore through her side, her breath coming short. Rogue stilled for moment, Death still didn't move, both trying to regain their strength. He held himself up with the help of his staff, leaning against it generously. His mouth opened and closed, showing a row of rotting teeth, still not taking his gaze away from her.

Rogue blinked. He was tiring, and she was still standing, healing quickly from Death's powers.

"Interesting," Death gasped. "Very. But this, is, only- the beginning."

"That's all you got for me, sugar? You talk the talk, but can't seem to walk the..."

With a rush of wind, he suddenly revived, his features turning young in a second, eyes reappearing. He came as a whirlwind, and Rogue watched, unable to stop him, her psyches silent with shock. It happened all in a second, his form had become a dark blur.

Something pale glinted at the end of his staff, something sharp. It rushed towards her, but it was too late.

Rogue's hand leapt to her throat. Trying to gasp for some air while Death pulled back, watching his work. A curved blade had appeared at the end of his staff, transforming it into a scythe, blood now tainting its edge. A victorious smile spread across his face.

If Rogue could have screamed, she would have, however, she wasn't able to voice the immense pain she felt, for her vocal cords were cut, her throat sliced from Death's assault. Blood flooded her hands, still at her neck enable to stop it flow, pouring down her uniform. This couldn't be possible. It wasn't the end. She still had things to do, her ironing to do back at the Mansion. Tell Kitty to stop wearing that awful turquoise shirt, steal a donut from Kurt.

She'd hit the ground without really realising that she'd fallen. Her blood polled beneath her, seeping through the gravel.

Her eyes took in a last sight: Death stooped over her, his lips moving slowly, his words crisp cold. "Here is the chopper..." He stood back up, and raised his scythe once more over Rogue's fallen form and neck.

Rogue trembled from head to foot, having only eyes for the blood-stained blade that glinted in the morning's faint light. Her vision darted to darkness, before it suddenly came back with a wave relief. She wanted to rip his face to shreds, trash him over the roof. However, she withered there, unable to take action. Her arms felt like lead, while the pressure she felt in her head was making her see stars.

"Don't look angry, you can't escape me so easily."

She coughed, blood woosing from her mouth, chocking on it. Her heart pounded in her chest, faster and faster, while her stomach knotted painfully. Her ear drums rung throughout her head, pressure mounting to new heights. She shook, feeling the cold stab at her body, shivering uncontrollably.

"Hold on, Stripes- Rogue! Please don't die!- Chere... You can't leave Remy." Wolverine, Kitty and Gambit had become a mass of incomprehensible words and mumbling in the background of her mind.

Rogue gritted her teeth. "Get lost," she croaked out, biting down all the pain she felt at that moment. I was nothing more than a hoarse whisper to Death's years.

A mix of surprise crossed his face, amazed that she had actually managed to talk, before it scrunched up in something unreadable. To her horror, his face suddenly softened and a clear but chilling laugh came from his open mouth ringing in the silent air. "You never abandon, do you, _Rogue_?" His voice sent tremors down her body. "Don't you see, you're alone, always so alone." He let his staff down to his side and crouched back down to her side, ripping the image inducer from her wrist, letting her arm fall back down limply to her side.

The sandy coloured hair turned to brown and pure white locks, her green eyes seemed to be unable to stay on his face any longer, shifting around tiredly.

"Seems you've also absorbed Weapon X to have such good healing abilities." His hand hovered over her torn throat, Rogue tried to recoil in vain. He pressed his ice-cold fingers to her neck, pain shooting away at his fingertips. "Want that to continue bleeding," he explained with a grimace, noticing that he had stained his white fingers with her blood.

"No absorption, sorry Rogue," he said wiggling his fingers to he face.

Her mind was whirling, what was happening, however, she wasn't able to make out anymore, her thoughts became less and less clear, and they soon jumbled up to a mass of confusion. Her head and vision seemed to spin and spin around, all sense of directions vanishing. Rogue was unable to register anything he said by now, fighting to simply stay conscious. The darkness seemed to be calling to her, asking to join it and finally rest; she slowly found it tempting. She didn't realised that Death had just touched her skin without protection. Wolverine had fast healing, but it didn't seem to be quick enough this time.

"No, I have higher orders, from Sinister. You're going back where you belong, Rogue. Beside, I can kill you, then revive your body, but it's a rather traumatizing experience to say the least." He smiled broadly, having considered this option already. But Sinister's recommendations were having her toiled back 'unscratched'. It was bad enough he'd sliced her throat, even if that would heal. He pinched her cheek fondly. "Now, you wouldn't have liked that-..."

However, he had his words cut by a menacing growl from behind him. "She ain't alone no more, bub."

Rogue tried to cling to consciousness, but the more she tried, the more she seemed to slip into darkness. Sounds rippled around her without being able to distinguish anything; The last think she felt was a cold touch on the end of her nose, however, it sent an unexpected soughing feeling of piece over her mind. And then, there was no more.

oooooooo

Well, does Rogue survive? You'll find out in the... next Episode!

Logan let Rogue absorb him. And it seems he's arrived to save the day! But, well, getting your throat slit is pretty bad.

But, oh no! Our favourite Cajun as been knocked out. Wolverine seems to be the only one aware that Remy actually killed (kitty was rather oblivious), even if he doesn't know who was the victim yet (a Psylocke clone). Now, will he tell? Rogue and Remy both seem to be in a big mess. I'll try putting lighter tones in the next chappies, thoug.

Anyway, found it rather good. What do u think? Made some real effort on the action scenes which I usually don't manage to do... Was it okay? Suggestions are welcomed.

I've actually been thinking about the sequel to come after all this, when Rogue will have solved her problems (some). I just promise, it won't be like any other fic you've read (if I ever manage to finish this fic first). I've actually already written the prologue.

Reviews! How I love you guys! Thanks again.

Discord, Goddess of Death: a personal hell? Hehe, your comment made me laugh! How thoughtful. Sure, he'll appreciate.

Ms.RogueLebeau: Update, update! How was the action? I really need to know. However, there seems more angst than fluff... I'll soon get back to Romy, promise.

AngstWolf: yeah, talking about updates, don't u think it's time for you to make the great jump and do the same? (Pretty please)

Star-of-Chaos: Amara needs a punch, but our poor Remy gets in instead. Under my sweet heart and girlish features, there's a ruthless sadistic maniac hiding there. /sighs in content./

Ishandahalf : Nah, I think I owe Rogue and Remy a happy life by now after all the hardship I put them through.

Pristinediamond: wouah! Well, u'l discover exactly which choice I took next chapter. But, yeah, getting free of authorities, now that she's a 'known' criminal! Suppose she would need to flee the country if she survives all this ordeal. And for the moment, Death stays a mystery (he's actually an OC of my own making), but he seems to know about Logan (Weapon X). enjoyed your suppositions, got me thinking loads there. ï

IvyZoe: can't hide you anything, can I? Mary is staying, mh... invisible for the moment, for safety measures. But don't you think it would be more interesting if mh... (can't spoil the rest for others) SHE survives? How would she react to knowing that in fact her existence is actually... not technically hers? (do I make any sense to you?)

Thanks also to archer's-angel (i'll see what I can do for that fluff), Sweety8587 (I understand you completely about the Rogue/Remy thing. It's together or nothing), Plague-darkholme (I think u'll be pleased about the outcome of next chapter) and RoguesTale (thanks a lot for the advice, i'll stay PG-13 then).

Now, get to that review button and make a girl happy. Muchas gracias!


	26. Expected but uninvited trouble

Warning: swear words and some violence

* * *

**Expected but uninvited trouble **

"What do you believe in?"

The sturdy man looked up from behind the counter, his eyes steady as he cleaned the whisky glass with a towel. Samuel 'Sam' Rodkins was an odd fellow, he wasn't talkative, or rash, but usually had a calm predisposition. Those who didn't know him would call him shy, others wouldn't be as naive, for Sam was the toughest man around these parts of down town New York. He put the glass away next to its brothers and took another one between his large hands, repeating the same old gestures.

"What I believe in is non' of yar business, lad," he told the young man that was sitting on the red stool, Red Bull in his hands. "I'll give ya some advice though..." Sam propped his arm on the counter, leaning close. "You should keep yar beliefs to yarself, before someone decides to off ya fo' good."

"I'm not frightened," the young man answered, swinging his drink to his lips and taking a gulp. "Tis a free country."

Sam lifted an eyebrow in amusement. "Indeed." He took a closer look at the lad. He was tall and gangly with close cropped brown hair. He wore a black Tee with the logo of some kind of barbaric music group on it. 'Young people today' Sam scoffed. However, he knew that young men and woman hadn't changed much in fifty years. He could still remember the old days when he used to go around his hair sculpted and sleek, with a trench-coat, just like the one the man in the corner wore. He glanced at the mentioned fellow who was busy smoking like a steam engine, his eyes dark behind the bangs of hair that fell across his face.

Sam turned back the young man next to him. "What's yar name?"

"Niles, Niles Brook. Down from Washington DC to visit my sister's place," he explained as his glass was filled up again with amber liquid.

"Niles, ever heard about Jones Harold?" Niles shook his head. "Jones was a friend of mine, a good fellow, really. But he just didn't know what was good for him." Sam paused. "He started chatting up with the folk in here, telling us what his beliefs were." He eyed Niles knowingly. "Got in a pretty good fight, I can tell ya." Niles was listening avidly. "Found him next morning dead in the street between the dustbins. Got his throat slit, the dumb chap. His wife Sandra was left with nothing but his body to bury. So ya just be careful."

Niles shook his head and shrugged. "Don't worry your ass off. I know how to defend myself."

"Sure you do..." Sam's words trailed off as he watched the man in the trench-coat approach, leaving his change on the counter and heading for the exit. Again he leaned close to Niles. "I can guess what kind of person people are. Ya saw that man, rushing out?"

"Yeah. He got bad taste, that's all I can tell," Niles told Sam. The trench-coat was a little over, so he thought, plus, he hadn't liked the bandanna he wore.

"He's a killer." Sam said this in a whisper. "I have one look in his eyes, and I can tell you that he's no angel kid." He smirked at Niles' bemused expression.

"You're kidding me." He looked around at the front door, trying to catch a glimpse of the man, but he was already long gone. "What do you see in me?" he asked turning back to the bartender.

Sam's brow furrowed for a while as he concentrated on Niles' face. "You're nearly drunk," he finally declared, rather bemused.

Niles grinned. "You got that one right, sir."

°

It was Sunday today, and Susan sat in church. First she prayed for her son, she hoped he could finally get his life going instead of fooling around doing nothing with his life. As much as she loved Tom, there were just some days when she couldn't stand his ways anymore. He would crash through her door every so night, completely drunk and loony. She'd tend to him till morning, let him sleep in her bed while she took the sofa. She'd then go work at seven in the morning, and when she got back, the food would be raided, and the house empty once more. That's it, her son was lost, he'd lost his way to god, had gone from depression to something deeper. And she wished it was his fault, but it wasn't, it was hers all along. How she'd brought him up, how she would let her husband have his way with him. And then leaving school so early, Tom never managed to fit with the others, and then unemployment, and what she deemed failure. It was these last days that worried her most.

Tom was man of Art, he could hardly count or read, but god he knew how to draw. And it was the one thing she respected the most in her son, he knew how to draw like no one else. He would draw portraits, and he would tell her all about them. Tom's artwork had such an air to it, it seemed so real. It was a blessing at times, or a nightmare at others.

He'd show her a small freckled lady with twinkling eyes. "This is Shirley. She used to like the Beatles but hasn't listened to any song from them since Lennon died." Then he'd grab another drawing, and Susan would look at it with thought. "Jeremy, he's a gambler, got into loads of trouble once. Couldn't pay off his debts."

Then one day, months later, Susan would take the drawings out again and ask what the people had become. "Shirley died last winter. She was getting old. Jeremy is luckier. Someone cut his debts off and is now helping others do the same."

When Tom talked about his drawings he always looked happy, and Susan loved it when Tom was happy. However, it took different, darker turns sometimes.

He'd yell and cry, and brake everything he could, becoming frantic. The young man that she knew would crumble under her eyes.

"Tom!" she would cry. "Baby, what's wrong?"

"He's gonna die! He's gonna die!" He'd push her away, but finally he would dissolve into her arms and would finally show her the paper he was clutching in his hand. "That's Jones," he'd said showing the new ink drawn portrait. This man had a broad nose and forehead and small beady eyes. If she looked any closer she would have noticed the pores of his skin, the perfectly shaded irises. "Jones Harold. He's gonna get killed." And then he had started sobbing.

It had struck her blood cold. Tom had changed since then; he wasn't as carefree as before. He was stuck in depression.

Susan sighed and looked up at the large holy cross ahead of her, The Son of God crucified upon it. She joined her hands and laid her forehead against them, closing her eyes. She stayed like this for minutes, maybe more, until she heard the bench creak beside her, sign that someone had sat down. She looked across at the man that had taken place at the end, near the aisle, and cringed.

She could smell him from where she sat, alcohol and dirt. He wore a bright blue scarf and grinned ahead from behind his thick dreadlocks. She noticed a large white flower stuck in his tangled hair and wondered what this man had came for.

He turned around to face her, winked and then spoke to her in a cheery, loud voice. "I believe, Ma'am, that you're in need of some help. It's your lucky day then, for I'm the one that is givin' it out."

o

Joe made his way out of the church, he had work at hand. He tightened his coat and blue scarf and headed outdoors into the cold streets of New York, skipping lightly with a tune on his mind.

Joe had a gift, and he was very proud of it. He'd got it off his dad, Sam Rodkins. He liked to call himself the King, The King of Hearts, not that he gambled, hell no, he hated gambling, but because he could see into people's hearts. That was his gift. He just had to cross someone in the street to know that they were sad, stressed… in need of help. He didn't do it for a living, help must always be free-given, or it just wasn't worth it. He'd usually live off the street, or stay at a friend's place one night or two, but that was it. The street was where he felt safer.

As he made his way it started raining, but the station was close now, and he didn't bother taking shelter. The Station was overcrowded with people, smell and noise, and he had to push his way past, yelling loud 'sorry's and 'Scuse me miss', and 'beg you pardon's before getting to where he wanted, not before noticing that he was followed. He continued on as if he hadn't noticed, dodging people before he entered a small cafe. He quickly ordered a beer and went to sit down next to his waiting friend.

"Hey Love, what's up, man?"

The man called Love looked up and made some space for Joe. "You're soaking wet, dude! Get a chair an' dry off." He was a wiry guy under a large military coat, another white flower producing from his front pocket. He petted his dog as Joe made himself comfortable, taking out his laptop and setting it up on the small table.

"So, what's the news?" Love asked.

"Met the mother," he said while he tipped away on the keyboard, his eyes focused on the screen. "She's a sour chick, I can tell you-Ow, shit... Damn connection." He tapped the laptop before continuing. "Well, she told me she ain't sure where to find Tommy boy, so, we'll just have to stay around for a while…"

"Went to see your dad yet?"

"Nah, I'll check him out tonight." He suddenly stilled. He smoothly closed the laptop with a click, took out a cigarette, lighted it and said: "Guess who's who's come to visit us, Love."

"Who, Joe? It ain't Nora, I hope, she's such a tight bitch."

"Nah, it ain't Nora, she's still in LA. It's worse, Love, it's Gambit."

Just as the words left his mouth, Gambit walked through the door, trench-coat shining with rain, hair plastered to his head. Joe knew that Gambit sure wasn't in a good mood, in fact, he'd never felt Remy LeBeau this angry. It was always for the worse with him, and Joe hated gambling with that son of a bitch.

He wasn't surprised when Remy's first words were: "I need your help."

Joe first cursed his philosophy, and then the Cajun.

o

Gambit was in a mess. He was waiting for Joe's answer, his thoughts running wild. If he refused, it was the end. Meanwhile, he scrutinised the two men. He noticed the white flowers, they'd kept up the tradition since last time he'd seen them.

Joe looked as wild as ever, his black hair a complete mess. He had his hands resting on his closed laptop. Always the one for technology. Love kept his dog close by, the animal seemed to watch Gambit with knowing eyes, a quit growl escaping it's throat. It was on its guard, and it had reason to.

Last time Gambit had crossed their path, it was back in New Orleans. He had guessed straight away that they were special, that they were mutants. They didn't call themselves that, though. Joe was an empath, Love had a gift with animals. Both had been friends for ages, and they went everywhere together. They had helped Gambit once, and they had paid the price dearly.

"I won't, Gambit. I ain't doing this."

Gambit froze, his fist clenched. His voice came out throaty, cold. "Ya're goin' ta help me, _fils de pute_, ya have to help Remy."

Joe grinned and laughed, it high pitched and unpleasant. "No, I don't. Your girl is a murderer, and you want me to save her?" His cheery manner dropped. "She deserves going to prison, she deserves what's happening to her."

"De _fille_ never chose t' kill. Ya can't let her be taken… Ya say that ya help people help Rogue, at least, if not Remy."

"You tell me that this girl is behind a massacre up in a lab someplace important, because she was working for a nutter. You tell me that this goodie good professor of this mutant school is going to wall her up for what she did, because, fuck, he's just realised she's raving mad." Joe was now whispering dangerously. "Guess what I'll tell you now, I bloody well think… he's right to do so."

Gambit's blood ran cold. He couldn't stop himself from reaching over the table and slamming his fist right into Joe's face. Blood ran over his knuckles, and before he knew it, the dog had jumped up from behind Joe's chair and snatched his jaws around Gambit's forearm.

Remy yelled in pain, throwing the canine off him, the arm of his coat already red with blood. Love's pet went whimpering to his master. As Joe held his bloodied nose, the cafe became silent, it's inhabitants staring worriedly in their direction. But Gambit didn't care anymore.

Ignoring the throbbing wounds of his arm, he fished out something from a pocket and threw it on Joe's and Love's table, between the beer and laptop. "Gambit saw yer _père_ earlier, seems as if de _homme_ is doin' fine. You don' want somethi' t' happen to him, neh?" It was clearly a threat. Without another word, he left.

"Quit staring!" Joe yelled at the curious onlookers. "Got your own lives? Get back to them!" His voice was slightly muffled from behind his hand, two fingers pinching the top of his nose painfully. He sat back down rumpled, taking a gulp of his beer. "Shit."

Love gave his friend a handkerchief, which was quickly soaked up in blood. "He sure didn't miss you, Joe."

Joe shrugged. "He never does." The photo Gambit had left on the table, however, got his attention. He picked it up and examined it. "Mother Fucker." He gave it Love to have a look.

"It's the girl, right? Rogue?" And sure enough, it was Rogue on the photo. He picked up Joe's discarded cigarette and set fire to it, leaving it to burn on the ashtray. Things always had a cost with Remy Lebeau.

o

Inspector Henry was a man of honour. He spent most of his time in the police car than in his own lonesome apartment. Sometimes he wondered why he still rented the place. He'd never chosen to enter the NYPD in the first place, it had been that or filling cans with chicken juice twelve hours per day. But serving as a policeman had finally pleased him, and then it became more than that, it became his life, his passion.

Right now he was on a murder case. Jones Harold was found dead at half past six on Tuesday morning. Cause of death, a 5 mm bullet gone right through his mouth and into his brain at around 2AM. Instant death, precise. The autopsy report told of a couple of rib fractures obtained before he was shot. Nothing seemed to have been stolen, he still had his wallet, and his credit cards and cash, so the motives were other, more personal maybe.

He went to meet a friend of the deceased Jones Harold, Samuel Rodkins. He owned a bar. Harold would usually go and have a drink there every Friday night. He said he got into a row with some customers about mutants. He was talking about "Tom somethin' or other, can't remember the name, sir… Anyway, said that this mutant told him that he was going to die soon. Shot. Oh, wait a minute, his name was Tom Bradson, I think. You know, if the chap hadn't talked to Jones, Jones wouldn't have thought that he would be killed, and he wouldn't have started this debate on mutants… do you follow me sir?"

Henry had checked out this Tom Bradson. The man didn't have a clean slate. Was found buying heroine and crack once or twice, was taken to the police station after have been spotted raving on Sixth Avenue, getting violent. He was _no angel_. And if he was mutant, didn't that make him even more dangerous? Henry started wondering about what power he had: seeing the future? Didn't people call that precognition? Tom Bradson would be dead useful in NYPD. But for now, the man was a suspect.

He finally pulled over and parked on the sidewalk, impatient with the traffic jams and decided to continue his way on foot. He needed to visit Sandra Harold, Jone's wife, now a widow, once more. Ask a few more questions.

He soon arrived at the foot of a brick building. He rang for second floor and waited next to the intercom.

"Yes, who's there?" a distorted voice came out of the communication device.

"This is Inspector Marks, can I have a word or two?"

There was a buzz and Henri was able to open the door. He took the elevator and found Mrs Harold's door already open with Sandra waiting for him.

"Come in," she told Henri, making a light gesture to match her words. The woman had bags under her eyes, she wore a baggy purple Lakers sweater. Her hair was wait, maybe she'd just come out of the shower, had she been under the rain too?.

"You're a fan?" Henri asked as he entered the humble home, mentioning the basketball name embroided on the sweater as headed for the sitting room only to find someone already there.

"No, Jones was," she replied, her eyes cast downwards. "This is Niles Brook, a close friend of mine. He came down from Washington DC to keep me company," she said avoiding Henri's gaze. The man looked up at his name and came to greet the police man.

Niles smiled politely and shook Henri's hand. "I'm glad that somebody's already on the case." Henri smiled back, more forcefully.

"Yes…" Henri started. "I have a question or two. Mrs Harold, maybe you would like to sit… Yes, so. Do you know someone by the name of Tom Bradson?"

She looked a little surprised. "Actually I do… Mr Bradson phoned once or twice, about a month ago asking to speak to my husband."

"Are you aware that Tom Bradson and your husband were last seen together about 48 hours before his murder?" She shook her head, negative. It was time to go and check out this Tom personally, Henri thought.

°

Love knocked on the door, one hand on the lead of his dog, glancing at his friend. Joe now had a plaster over his nose, he was looking grim.

"Remember last time?" he asked. Love nodded. "With that stupid Thieves Guild. Course, the Assassins just had to be around the corner. He used us. He had it all planed. He needed an escape root, and we just happened to be there, ready for diversion. Gave us a false address, we went right into that bloody trap…" He stopped talking when Love kissed him, shutting him up for good.

Love knocked again and finally the door was opened. Susan appeared, teary eyed.

"They took my baby away… They took my Tommy away."

"Who?"

"The police. They found that man's drawings. Said it was a real person, that he had been killed; that Tom was guilty. I thought he was inventing everything., but, it was all true. I don't understand what's happening."

"Calm down," said Joe, placing a hand on her shoulder. "We have some explanation to this."

Love nodded. "Hello Mrs Bradson. I'm Joe's friend, you can trust me," he told the petite woman.

_A couple of minutes later._

"My baby is what?"

"Tom is a mutant. He is gifted," Joe explained. "He is gifted with precognition. That's why he had a hint about this Jones Harold's death. He draws what he sees in the future. We know that Tom isn't aware of this, that he thinks that he's mad. He isn't, that's why we wanted to find you, so he could understand his gift, so he doesn't get in trouble, or exploited."

"Yes," Susan said. "It makes sense. All those people he drew, he'd tell me about their life, like if he knew them personally. Ever since he was just a kid."

"Mrs Bradson," Love started. "Do you have any more drawings? Maybe you should destroy them, before the police get its hands on them."

Susan looked startled. "I couldn't possibly. It's his Art, it's what he is."

Joe and Love shared a look. They knew too well the trouble this could lead to, but they realised that maybe these drawings were too important to be destroyed. Plus, maybe Tom would need them when Joe and Love would go and get him out of his cell. "Maybe if you put them in a file?"

°

Tom had his head between his hands while he sat on his cot in a cell at the police station. He knew exactly what was happening. They thought he had killed Jones. His hands shook as he let them fall next to him, he needed a smoke, or something to calm his nerves. He needed a pen and paper. But he had neither. Someone else was in the cell. They had brought him in about an hour ago. Since then the man hadn't stopped staring at him with his dark eyes. It unnerved Tom, he was deathly pale, had jet black hair, around twenty, maybe, yet he seemed much older somehow.

Tom wiped his forehead; he was sweating terribly. He felt like a lamb trapped in a snake's nest. He soon felt dizzy, and he knew what would follow. A mad vision, distorted. This one left him breathless and shaking. When he next opened his eyes he was on the ground, in cold sweat. And he knew.

The other man hadn't moved an inch, his eyes were still strained on Tom.

"You're Death."

The pale man smiled unpleasantly. "Indeed, I am." There was pause, uncomfortable, threatening. "I've heard that you're an accomplished artist."

°

Professor Xavier had his eyes closed. He felt betrayed, but tried to restrain the powerful emotions that where threatening him. He also felt guilty. Rogue, he had promised to help her, bring her to the light after her chaotic childhood, the suffering, help her with her powers. He had miserably failed, but he still had to do what was best.

Gambit had fled the institute, leaving his fellow Acolytes behind. Magnus had been most displeased, for he affirmed that he had nothing to do with Gambit's quick escape from the med-lab. Meanwhile Rogue was still in bed, taken care of by Dc McCoy, recently returned from his journey with the most disturbing news.

Rogue was still intubed, her trachea still sore from the severe mutilation she had endured. She was awake and conscious but enable to talk yet. Wolverine's healing she had obtained just minutes before her injury had surely saved her life. It had clung to a thread, but she was able to come through and survive.

It had been a clean and swift cut right across her throat with the help of a scythe. Rogue informed them scribbling across her small blackboard, that she hardly remembed the whole ordeal, her mind being afuzz. However she was able described her attacker precisely, Logan confirmed the information, adding that the mutant fled as soon as he arrived ( he also added that he was disappointed, for he wasn't able to show the mutie "the fine art of slicing and dicing") Xavier was not aware of this mutant's existence, which troubled him greatly.

The Security camera's tape rested on Xavier's desk, DNA samples enclosed in a file at it's side. These elements informed him more than he would have liked. Hank had worked well. He wished it wasn't true, he had tried denying his worries for a while, but now he had to embrace the truth, and make Rogue confess and explain in detail her whereabouts during her one-month of disappearance. And then he would take the necessary measures.

°

Joe and Love sat underneath Brooklyn Bridge, enjoying the view. It was wet, but they didn't mind. They kept themselves warm enough, Love's dog between them. They had found a small radio and some batteries and had switched it on. Soon they heard the confident voice of a reporter.

"The president declares that necessary measures will be put in place to keep the mutant threat at bay this afternoon, for people must be informed of the dangers that mutants might present in every day life. I quote "In these troubled times we must stay together, united, so we can face the future's challenges and come out victorious."-End quote. Many supporters were demonstrating their approval on the White House's steps. ...

"Flash News: New York Police Department alerts citizens of Thomas Bradson's escape from Police Station, suspected for murder. One meter seventy five, black man, last time he was seen he was wearing a blue shirt and black pants. Police advises to report if sighting…"

Joe turned off the radio. "Fuck. Why did he have to go and do that? Couldn't he have guessed we were coming to fetch him? Ungrateful bastard. What are we going to tell his mum?"

"Mh… He'll probably return home to fetch his belongings if he's dumb enough- and if he's smart, leave the city straight away or…"

"... stay low for a while, and then try and flee the state?" proposed Joe, rubbing his hands together for a bit of warmth. White mist was now escaping his parted lips, temperature was quickly plunging; it was a matter of minutes now before it snowed. He picked up the purple file where all of Tom's drawings were stashed away. "What do we do with this?"

Love took it from Joe's hands and opened it. "We need clues," he said when he noticed Joe's warning gaze. "Might as well start here." He slid a couple of drawings out and handed them to Joe while he looked through another stack.

"Hey, this one," said Joe showing the picture of woman. She had a small new-born child resting in her arms, breast feeding it gently, head tilted over the baby's small form. The stroke of the pencil was soft on the paper, her curves inviting; she was more attractive than any top model on the catwalks he'd even seen. Joe noticed that she wore a ring, and told Love so. But what was particular about her was her two toned hair.

"This is Remy's girl, then?"

He turned the page around and swore under his breath. "You're not going to believe this." He gave it back to Love who had a look. The back was black with writing and scribbling.

"Fuck, she said that he drew, no one told us about writing a novel to go with it! Check it out. 'Goes by the name Rogue'…"

°

Sandra looked out onto the gloomy street from her window, hugging her sweater.

"Cold, sweetheart?" Niles asked, coming up from behind.

"No." She took a deep breath. "Niles?"

"Mh?"

"You'r crazy."

Niles smiled warmly. "Yeah, baby, I'm crazy of you."

* * *

This is a special chapter, makes a large detour without saying much, really. I couldn't focus on Gambit or Rogue directly, they needed a short brake. By the way, no use searching in the Comics' data, they're original characters. They're thriving, I can tell you. Hope it doesn't put you off, though. At least you get some answers. And more riddles, and see Remy getting violent and frantic. Hope you've actually noticed who's Jones' murderer is. Niles that little creep. Oh, and by the way, I'm enjoying writing about Death.

**Cass**: an update an update un update! I'm all exited, I just can't hide it! I hope you're too!  
**Gothic Cajun: **Rogue is in big trouble, but super heroes _always_ survive, even when they die, so hey! No worry!  
**Rogue4787**: Woah! Long review! About figuring out the plot? Don't count on it too soon. I've just made a turn on the right, heading in I don't know what direction (I thought I had an ending, and I've just screwed it up good with this chapter. Besides, there's usually a change of plot every five days or so… Can't figure out how this is going to continue right now either.)  
**Crysala**: hope this ads up to suspense then, because they're be hell to pay in next chapter!  
**Ms.RogueLebeau**right. Clarification, I wrote 'sugar' to show that her accent was different, sorry if it was that confusing. I rather like the words _rubbish_, _flabbergasted_, _gobbledegook_, _bloody hell_ and so on. I actually keep a kind of list in these words. I keep trying to pop them in.  
**Enchantedlight**: I didn't update soon after all. Enjoy. Better late than never, huh?  
**X2P3**: Ah, the clone question… mh… I haven't figured it out yet. Sorry.  
**Sweaty8587**I'm letting the clones down, just for a while.  
**Star of Chaos: **sorry I'm so late with this chapter. I'v actually made three versions of this one, and it's actually rather frustration that so much is put in the trash. Oh, yeah, I actually find Death rather cool, in a bizarre way.  
**IvyZoe**: I'm not sure that what I state in the author notes before are valid anymore, as I've changed the plot rather drastically several times already. But, I'll try to clarify everything out (or nearly everything) in next chapter, when I get around to it.  
**Ishandahalf**: I've been practising portraits. Hope you like these new characters. Joe and Love are actually inspired by these two guys that were sitting next to me during a train ride across France. Damn I couldn't stand them (they were speaking so loud!), but they seem to have reincarnated here, so that's cool. I forgive them.

**As you must already know… I LOVE YOU and your reviews. So keep it coming so I can stay high (you can also ad comments and criticism, plain flame, suggestions, point out errors I made, laugh at my expense and bless Stan Lee and the likes. It's warmly welcomed and fun to read.)**


	27. Lies and deceit are best served cold

**Lies and deceit (are best served cold)**

**o**

"I'm afraid that we're going to have to keep her on sedatives for the moment."

The words hung still in the air, crisp cold in Professor's Xavier office.

"I'm afraid that we're going to have to keep her on sedatives for the moment- for her own good."

His eyes looked sad in the dim light. He'd tossed and turned the possibilities in his head all day long, had taken time to reflect on the consequences of her actions, and ultimately his regarding her.

"-for her own good she will be retained here for a while, before I call the adequate authorities to take care of her."

It seemed he couldn't say her name. He'd cared so much for her, had hoped that he would remedy to her problems, bring her to the light so she would forget her past. How naive, he knew very well that no one could really forget what they were, what they had once done. Nor could they truly forgive. Not this time, he couldn't.

"-before I call the authorities to take care of her. I'll personally make sure that she will be treated well."

To who was he saying these things? His office was laid empty in front of him, the bookcases seemed to bring the walls closer to his desk, in an oppressing way, towering over his seated form.

He sighed.

oooooo

The screen fizzed loudly as it showed the grey and white snow that usually appeared when the aerial was out.

"I'v got it!" Kurt exclaimed from behind the TV, crouched down over the plugs and electric which were turning into what seemed like knots of spaghetti. The screen spluttered a couple of words, the image contorted, bright colours clashing horribly.

Rogue squinted at the screen, her brows knotted together in concentration. She titled her head to have a better look at it. It was a tiger! No, maybe a car… 'It's-' Rogue started, but was immediately cut off by Kitty as her friend shoved a large marker and a stack of paper on to her lap.

'You're meant to rest your voice Rogue, so no talking.' She wiggled her finger with what she thought was authority and a scowl.

Rogue gave the girl a piercing glare, before picking up the marker and scribbling something on the paper in thick black letters.

Rogue lifted the page up so Kitty could read. "It's giving me a damn headache!" She tossed the paper away and took another to write down something else. "For the last time, it's the right plug!" and then on another sheet: "It's the TV that doesn't work."

Kurt, stood up from behind the television, frustrated. 'Zis thing is hopeless!' And with another frustrated grunt, thumbed his blue fist on the top of the screen. A clear image suddenly came alive.

"_Firemen and emergency ambulances came rushing to the scene. The fires were quickly put out, however, in this tragedy, seven people lost their lives, among them Gabriella White and her fourteen months old child, Reena, and twelve seriously wounded…."_

Kurt had backed away next to Rogue's bed, looking solemn. He slowly turned his gaze towards his sister. 'Course, zey don't say we brought some of the wounded to ze Hospital.'

'They, totally don't talk about us,' Kitty added, looking quite down herself.

"_Now more than forty eight hours after the attack, a commission has been set up to clear the mystery around Fern Street. For barely two months ago, Greldon's Bank was subject to an organised assault, involving series of explosions…"_

'And we still don't know who the mutant was that attacked you…"

Rogue had the marker clenched in her hand, about to write something more down, but she didn't know if she should. She'd been asking herself the question over and over again, but never dared voicing it, or in this case, writing it. Slowly she traced the words, finishing with a question mark. "How's Gambit?"

'Seems the same mutant got to him too,' Kitty explained, sitting on the edge of Rogue's medical bed. 'His state wasn't any worse than yours, but Mr Logan decided to knock him out. Must have been painful. But he left rather quickly, said it was for personal business.' Kitty voiced this with concern, a little sad that the Cajun had left so soon. "Xavier said that Gambit wasn't under his authority, so he couldn't stop him."

Kitty and Kurt exchanged knowing glances, they weren't telling her all the truth. Gambit had left, but not in such quiet way. Kitty could still remember the fright she'd had when she found Gambit looming over Rogue's sleeping form, just hours after they had been taken to the med-lab. Rogue's condition had been uncertain back then. He had simply nodded, and had left. Kurt had shared some information with her, about the professor who had wanted to keep Gambit in Mansion for a while, to keep an eye on him.

Kurt didn't linger on the subject, his sister being his prime centre of attention. 'With Mr Logan's healing factor, you're loads better.'

Rogue didn't need Kurt to tell her that she was better. She felt alive, for one, her neck had actually cauterised, jugular magically repaired and she wasn't agonising on the ground, which was good. Hank's only orders were to go easy on her vocal cords: reason why she was forced to use pen and paper to communicate, to her utmost frustration.

Rogue felt that she wouldn't get any more information from her two friends. She realised, to her disbelief, that she wanted to know where Gambit had gone, but no one seemed to be able to give her any more clues. Why had he left? More importantly, why had he left her? Weren't the nights they had passed together mean anything to him? He had the answers to her questions, but why so secretive? He had seemed genuine towards her, but now? She felt the solitude, the lack of his presence overbearing. He had his reasons, but didn't he owe her anything?

'How long are you going to have to stay in the med-bay anyway?' Kitty asked, finally changing the channel, pointing the remote at the television, randomly pressing the buttons. She finally settled down, to Rogue's horror, for a talk show. She tried to grab the remote from Kitty's clutches, but the freshman giggled, phasing right through Rogue's groping hand. 'No way, Rogue!'

With a yelp, Kitty found herself suddenly on the floor; Rogue had pushed her off from the side of the bed when she'd materialised back. 'That's, like, not fare!' she complained, her backside now aching. She looked up at the Goth, a little angry. Rogue had a smirk on her face, looking satisfied.

She scribbled something before showing the sheet of paper to Kitty. "Bite me."

'I will!' Kitty shot back!

'Kitty! Rogue! Shhh!" Kurt told them, his gaze still strained on the TV screen.

Rogue's smirk left, lifting another paper. "I'm not the one talking, fuzzball." She'd added some drawing next to the word "fuzball" that remotely looked like a face with a scowl and two horns on it's head. The meaning of such a drawing was lost to her friends. But her attention quickly went back to the screen, so did Kitty's, lifting herself up with the help of the edge of the bed.

"_What made you decided to join the Friends of Humanity, George?"_ the elegant commentator asked a middle aged man which held traces of greying streaks in his light coloured hair.

He scratched his beard, his eyes intent on the camera. _"Our neighbours had a daughter, she was turning sixteen._" Rogue realised that his eyes looked deceivingly bright with the help of the spotlight that basked his face in blinding light_. "They were very good friends of our family. My son was very close to their daughter, Emmy..."_ The memories he was putting into word seemed painful, but he gulped, pushed back his pride and continued to explain. _"But when their daughter's mutation manifested, she brought the house down on their heads in the middle of the night."_ He shifted uncomfortably in his armchair. _"All three were killed. Since then, I've decided to participate actively with the Friends of Humanity, to make sure no innocent lives aren't taken by mutants."_

"_What do you mean by actively?"_ the commentator asked, leaning slightly forward, notepad between perfectly red painted nails.

"_They gave me a mobile phone, with a free number to call if I suspect a mutant of being dangerous. So, if I press 339, the Friends will locate my position, and send troops to take the mutant into custody. They present a danger to our everyday security, it's only normal, stopping a mutant from bringing harm... You see, if they can't control themselves, they could hurt their closest friends without meaning to do so."_

"_Aren't you afraid of mistaking a human for a mutant? Mutants can look like any normal human being… If you make this mistake, would it weight on your conscious?" _

"_No, Ma'am."_ He straightened up in his seat, as if he'd been stung personally by her comment. _"If I go wrong, then, all the fault is mine and I will be willing to testify. And, as a respectable citizen, I feel like I'm doing the right thing, trying to keep my friends- and everyone..." _applause started filling the stage. _"...safe_."

The TV was switched off, and static crisped as the screen turned to black. Kitty still had the remote. 'I think, like, we've seen enough,' Kitty mumbled, clearly shaken by the man's words.

'Ja,' Kurt agreed. His tail was twitching nervously.

Rogue was not of that opinion. As soon as her friends left, she grabbed the remote and turned it back on, her emerald green eyes furiously intent on the screen. Sparks seemed to glitter in her pupils.

"It's to be expected," Logan psyche commented.

"But why? Why do they…"

"We're all afraid of what we don't know, Stripes, of what we can't control. An' when ya're afraid, ya're easy to manipulate. Remember that, kiddo. Ya know what I'm talking about."

Rogue looked around, she wished she could leave the med.lab, hadn't Kurt mentioned it was snowing? But she felt that Logan psyche was right- right not only about the man she'd just seen confessing on television, but about herself. Hadn't she been afraid before? Wasn't she still afraid right now? Fear about her powers had brought her to Sinister. Fear for Remy, making her jump into a trap just a couple of days before. How she had feared Remy's unanswered questions... she had tried to get closer to him, only to have nothing unravelled. Everything was still a mystery, and she knew now, that if she didn't have answers soon, someone would be taking advantage of her.

She wished Logan was still here, but had needed to leave on an urgent errand for the professor. "Alaska's waiting for me, Stripes. Wheels is using me as some errand boy. But no worry, I'll be back soon, make sure ya rest, or they'll be hell to pay if I hear ya're out of bed, wandering the corridors still injured."

For only answer to Logan's words, she'd grabbed her pen and wrote this down: "Logan an errand boy? What's the world coming to?"

Logan had chuckled at that, ruffled Rogue's hair, and left.

oooooo

It was late at night when Hank came to check up on Rogue. He held the syringe carefully between his large hands as he watched Rogue sleep quietly, head resting directly on the cot, neck and stilled into place by a large minerve. He had to do _this_, he thought to himself.

Hank had been a man proud to know that he could easily distinguish good from evil, even when appearances were sometimes misleading. This had followed him after his mutant gene had manifested. And what he had seen, what he had retrieved these last months, tape records, sightings, genetic samples, confirmed that what Rogue had done was wrong... was intolerable. All those men, even if they'd been soldiers, had been killed- no, slaughtered ruthlessly. He had met up with a couple of traumatised lads that were tended at the Flower Sun Hospice, an Asylum. He had decided, that who ever had did this had to be evil. His shock when he found out that it was this sour, but kind looking young girl.

Rogue could barely open her eyelids, and decided that she really didn't want that searing headache to return, so she left her attempts for another time, letting her mind cool down in the black folds semi-consciousness.

_Mhhh..._

She was sure that she'd been the one to moan. It had come out as a reflex, for she didn't feel the needle puncture the soft skin of the interior of her arm, her mind too foggy to register what was happening on the other side of the world, a bright, full of pain and despair world. _Let it stay on the other side, Ah'm feeling just fahne where Ah am. Dont bothe' comin' t' fetch meh. _

As if her prayers were answered, she felt the small grasp she had left on consciousness fall away from her, like sand through open fingers. She didn't resist its pull, and accepted it with a smile on her face.

ooooo

"How is it going?" the dark voice spoke out clearly, waiting expectantly for an answer from the young looking man, his black hair tousled over his face.

"Fine, Nathaniel," Death answered, a smirk discreet on his face; "Things couldn't be better." There was no indication for whom things were going well, but Sinister did not add any comment to Death's declaration.

"Is Mr Bradson co-operating?"

Death titled his head to the side, looking past the open door towards the mutant that was seated at a desk, his back facing him. Sheets of paper littered the floor, twisted faces full of pain and anguish looking up from them. "Yes, he is. Rather effective, I can tell you." Death held out one drawing. A girl, no, a woman maybe, was sleeping, while a large form hovered over her- a form he recognised as Hank McCoy. Tom Bradson had confirmed the mutant's identity. He quickly distinguished the needle that had been plunged into Rogue's arm. "Proof is that our dear Rogue is now taking up her role of sleeping beauty perfectly," he said, letting the sheet fall back to his side, aristocratic voice clipped with humour.

"All is well. Take care of Mr Bradson when he is finished." Death eyes flickered towards the man in the next room, whose shoulders suddenly stiffened.

"Yes, of course." The secured line went dead, Death placed the receiver down, stretching his legs out with satisfaction.

Tom Bradson looked back towards the seated Death, turning his head away from his work. "De old _thing_ told ya t' get rid of me, huh?" His eyes fell menacingly on Death's pale face, fingers pinching a yellow and black pencil, which had been earlier scrawling across the paper on the desk that rested in front of him.

Death cocked his head slightly to his left before placing his hand under it so support the small weight. His black eyes glowed faintly. "Why ask me, Tom, when you can answer your own questions?" A smile played on his lips, his eyes flirting with the discarded sheets of paper. Surely, he knew what was to occur.

Tom grinned, shook his head and went back to work.

_Sorry, my good old friend Nathaniel. However, I can not dispose of such a talented being. You have always took the real thing for granted, these mistakes aren't mine, though.._

"It will be our little secret, Tom, won't it?"

"Count on me, buddy!" came Tom's reply.

Death squirmed slightly at the name the other mutant had used. "If we really must be familiar, please call me..." The cold mutant's eyes looked steadily away, out the window where thick grey clouds were claiming the sky. "... Robin."

* * *

Strange interactions are growing, and I'm blurring the lines between Sinister's side, Xavier's dream, Remy's actions, and Rogue's dealings. Who gets the benefits? I'm still wondering... 

Well, as you might have noticed, I've updated. Amazing. But well, holidays are here, and I can't miss such an opportunity to laze around on the computer. I usually have a spurt of inspiration around this time of year! (Call the blame on the nice weather and lack of work!)

Thanks again for the reviews, it always gets my head bobbing with excitement. However, if you have any details about some bad grammar, nonsense writing, be my guest, flame me to hell! (you can also add constructive criticism).

**WILL**: sorry about the confusing part, but I'm currently working on updating every chapter...**  
Angstwolf:** exams, huh? Good luck then, I've about finished mine! (It explains the update.)  
**Enchantedlight**: here goes chapter 27.  
**Sunspotmisery**: sorry about that. I feel that my writing skills have improved since first chapter, however I feel they still need sharpening- a lot.**  
Ishandahalf:** it's always nice having you grace me with the longest review! Talking about original characters, I'm so glad you like them! Death stays my favourite, he's soooo got a hidden agenda!


	28. Tranquillité, no less

**Tranquillité**

**°**

Death waited patiently for the red light to change to green, while his companion, Tom Bradson, sketchpad on his knees, accomplished another of his drawings with rough strokes of his black pen. The lines progressively involved into a hand, a head, ramifying together and creating a new premonition. As the green light appeared, the dark BMW turned the corner and continued its way smoothly, snow flakes hitting the shiny smoked windows.

"What is it?" asked Death, glancing at the drawing. Tom chuckled, letting the ghost white mutant have a look.

A man was shouldered against the wall of a small room, waistcoat and shirt shredded. The dark shadows that dripped from his stomach was probably blood. It looked painful Death mused, glancing at his own shirt and black waistcoat. "Those are my favourite, what a waste."

"Bet there are, _buddy._" Tom tore the drawing away from the sketchbook, folded it smoothly and pocketed it. He was about to take out his lighter and smoke, when Death stopped him.

"Not in _this_ car."

"Aw, come on. Loosen up, here, we can share..." The shrouded glare stopped Tom from insisting. "Man, you are a tight bad ass."

A smirk was softly drawn across Death's face. "I like it that way."

Indicating, Death entered a small parking lot, a brilliant neon sign declaring that it was part of a motel. A small old caravan and a smart vintage motorbike were its only occupants. As the two men left the BMW, suitcase in hand, duffel bag over a shoulder concerning Tom, Death let his gaze run over the bike and then to the motel's lit windows. He tightened the collar of his felt coat and led the way towards the motel's small automatic sliding doors.

He was soon handed a key to a room and about to head there for the night, when Bradson mentioned that he would go and visit the nearby bar while Death took care "of the business." Death was soon unlocking the door to his room. Switching on the light, he examined it. A small bed, plastic night table with a radio on top, flower patterned wallpaper. In all: bad taste, but it did serve its purpose. He hung his coat carefully at the side of the door. And then, proceeded to set his briefcase on the bed. It opened it with a click. On one side, was set a small screen with speakers. On the other, different gleaming weapons laid beside, encased in foam. Now... the only question was: which one?

°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Logan watched the snow slowly descend over the motel parking, gradually covering up the cars and ground with a growing white blanket. He leaned against his room's balcony rail, wearing his jeans and simple white T-shirt. He knew it was cold, but it didn't feel that cold to him, not with his super human resistance to freezing and high temperatures. When he was in the Gobi Desert, some time ago, he hadn't even broken into a sweat. And right now, not even a shiver ran across his skin. It actually felt invigorating, he decided.

It didn't stop him from feeling angry. The Professor had sent him on the most boring mission ever given to man kind: it consisted of waiting for a mutant to show up, so he might be able to convince the Bub about joining Xavier's cause. Until then, he had to wait. Logan had never, as far as he could remember, been a patient person. He preferred destroying things instead of waiting. He felt frustrated, angry, and bored. A bad combination concerning the Wolverine.

Seeing Rogue so frail again, and having to leave her like that, it was bad luck, very wrong timing. And now he had to wait, while Rogue was recovering in the Med-Lab! The Med-Lab! He thought that he wouldn't hold a grudge against her if she tried to escape before she was fully recovered. He wouldn't have waited, that's for sure.

He drew out a cigar, lit it and placed it between his teeth. The taste of good tobacco filled his senses_. That's better_. At least he could smoke it here whereas he was restricted at the Mansion. For good reasons, he argued, but it didn't make him feel less frustrated.

Now, back to Rogue. He couldn't hide that he felt and worried deeply for Rogue. It had been a very close shot, with that scythe. He'd come in the nick of time, barrelled the mutant away, gaining a couple of swipes from the weapon at the same time. The mutant had fled; Logan sneered. So much for bravery. He remembered the mutant's face: terribly pale, dark hair, dark eyes, _young face_. Rogue had mentioned rotting flesh...

Rogue.

So much he wanted to ask, but he had restrained. He had to trust her, forgive her for what she was hiding from him. She had her reasons, and he hoped she knew her limits.

Logan was taken out of his reverie as loud music started blaring from the next door room. Loud Rock, and it was making his sensitive ears bleed. He looked at the time. Nearly twelve, the witching hour. A little late to start a party in a motel room, he thought. Well, the guy that was renting the room must have thought otherwise, for he raised the volume. Logan could feel the walls tremble each time the basses rang.

"Who does he think he is? The Rolling Stones?"

Logan thought it was enough. He left his room and knocked on the door of his loud neighbour. "Cut it out, Bub! People are trying to sleep!" Course, he couldn't say it was because of his sensitive ears.

There was no reply, and the music's volume stayed the same. "Open up!" He banged his fist harder, making the door rattle from the force. He could hear someone just behind the door. His suspicions didn't have time to save him from escaping the first blow.

There was a brush of movement, like air being sucked, and then the blow came. Shards of wood flew as something tore through it, and it suddenly was indemb right into Logan's thigh, sending a growl of pain and on to his knees. With clenched teeth, he pulled out the -what looked like a...

"A bloody harpoon? No one told me it was fishing season..." Then he smelled it. Poison coating the sleek metal device.

With a snarl, he sent the door out of its hinges and crashing to the room's floor, revealing a young, ghostly young man, posed against the small bed, silver gun still smoking from the harpoon he'd just sent right through the door. Logan's own eyes became wide. Death cast the gun aside, and extended instead his bo-staff, tipped by a a sharp spear. Animal instincts took over. Logan released his claws and charged, a growl escaping his clenched teeth. Instead of slicing through flesh, they hit th metal staff. Death peered over their interlocked weapons and grinned.

"Sorry, was I disturbing you?"

Logan seethed with rage. He pulled his right claws out and slashed at Death's face. Logan felt satisfaction as he saw the red trails he'd left. However, it was followed by disappointment, as the bleeding soon stopped, the wound healing instantly, leaving smooth skin behind. Taking advantage of Logan's surprise, Death dislodged his staff from Logan's pair of claws and aimed for the heart.

The deadly rod was pushed aside in time.

"You can try to kill me, Goose," said Logan with a growl. "But I warn ya, Yer stick won't beat the Wolverine."

"Well," said Death, taking high manners, brushing invisible dust from his black waistcoat. "You can slice me as much as you like," he said, a smile itched onto his face. "I'll always heal."

"Ya want to place a bet?" taunted Logan, taking a few steps inside the room, while Death took the same steps, in the opposite direction, both mutants now circling each other menacingly.

"I don't usually bet. But if you so wish, I can make an exception." Death's reply only served to irritate Logan farther, who now had his back to the small bed and night table. He seized it and sent it flying across the room. Death jumped aside, letting it crash against the wall and crumble to the cheap fake tiles of the floor.

Death surveyed the mess, his brow scrunched up. "I'll have to pay for that, you know." He then added with a smirk: "By the way, the poison will soon take affect. I might add, for your personal knowledge, that it's a 90 concentrated lethargic..." He was unable to speak farther comment as Logan crossed the small space between them, raising his claws to strike once more.

"Ya're goin' to pay for what ya did to Rogue!" he shouted, steering clear from one of death's blows. His claws soon met death's abdomen, shredding the waistcoat, and stomach. The wound was healed just as quickly. Logan cursed, just as the staff hit him squarely in the middle of his forehead, sending his head backwards with a sick crack. The couple of stars that danced in front of his eyes stayed momentary, but longer than Logan expected.

If he wanted his revenge, Logan knew he had to get rid of the mutant's staff. It was clearly made out of adamantium. With it, Death could get Logan without any close fighting, whereas Logan needed the mutant close enough so his claws could work miracles. The music was still grating on his nerves. The bass drummed against his senses unmercifully.

"Wolverine, I am not here to _brawl_, not today," said Death. He didn't change his fighting stance though. "I'm here about Rogue."

"Leave Rogue out of this if ya know what's good for ya."

Death shook his head lightly. "Rogue is the root of the problem. I can't leave her out of this."

"Ya're gonna hafta. Ya're the one, bub, that's being a problem."

"Careful, you're deceiving yourself, Weapon X."

The name only spurred Logan's rage.

"Haven't you smelt it? Felt it? Seen it? I would have thought, with your high senses that you would have least suspected it."

"What ya're talking about?"

It was the distraction Logan was waiting for: Death laughed loudly.. It was cut off by Logan's ... long claws planted deeply inside Death's stomach. He didn't stop there, though He slowly started to rotate them, satisfied to hear Death's yell of pain. Dark blood poured heavily from the wound. It didn't, however, stop Death from speaking his last words.

"Rogue... has changed way unimaginable to your animalistic mind."

Logan stumbled back face contorted in pain as the poison of his words, and poison that seeped through the shot he'd received earlier taking effect over his body.

"Arhhh!" he yelled, hitting a couple of night table debris and falling over, holding his head between his hands.

Death looked at Logan with hooded eyes. He leaned against the wall and slowly slipped to the floor, enable to stand up anymore, hand against the open wound, face as still as stone. It was as painful as he had expected. But now that the Wolverine was taken care of, he knew that he would survive. It would take a couple of minutes to heal, though.

Logan was now breathing hard on the floor, his muscles lax by his side, his senses blurred.

"Wait and see," he breathed. "I'm gonna finish ya off!"

"Oh please, how? By sending me a death glare?" Death asked, his head resting against the wall behind him. He was presently sending waves of his powers to his wound. He was already feeling better. "Look, Weapon X. Rogue left the Institute to meet Sinister or Dc. Nathaniel Essex. Talented Genetic Scientist of the 19th century. Or Nathan Millbury or... too many names for just one man, believe me. The point is, this man has Rogue in the palm of his hand..."

"What would Rogue want from a genetic scientist!" protested Logan.

"You are already aware of the transformations Rogue has lived through."

Silence fell over the room, leaving Logan to his thoughts.

It couldn't be true. And then... He could remember Rogue's strange smell, a smell he remembered from his early days. A sore on the back of her neck, or was it a scar? She'd looked frail. But she'd returned with something else: control over her powers –more exactly those she'd absorbed-. Returned with her psyches gone. "So Stripes could have control over her powers..."

"You're catching up fast. Maybe faster than I had planned... It was a successful operation, except for one major loop."

Logan kept still, straining his senses to discern the lie behind the words. He found none, and panic, something he hadn't felt for some time, started to rise. "Liar," he said. But his faith was dwindling. Sincerity was something very hard to fake, especially if you're trying to fake it in front of the Wolverine. He was slowly able to turn his head towards Death who didn't seem to be in a very good state either, he was pleased to note. "What is the price for control?"

"It's usually servitude. You have never met Sinister, not in all the years you've lived, Weapon X. You wouldn't know how obsessed he is with his project. He is searching the means to make the most powerful mutant ever. "

"Rogue can absorb any mutant power. Probably _every_ mutant power."

"Exactly. Rogue became one of his big assets, and he believed that he could clone her, make her a better, even stronger mutant. Make the perfect killer."

Dread filled Logan' s mind. No, it could be possible. He wouldn't... And still Death's voice did not betray him: every word spoke the cold truth, as if they were imperturbable truth. "Did he... succeed?"

Death eyed Logan with surprisingly, pitying eyes. "Why aren't you asking how I know all this, Weapon X? Why am I telling you this? Have you never learnt to check your sources?"

Why, why why?

Logan scoffed. "Let me guess. World domination?"

"Thanks goodness no," came Death's reply. "He wants to survive the next world wide threat first. He'll consider World Domination afterwards, trust me."

"I hardly do."

-

"Which world wide threat-"

"Listen to me carefully," he cut Logan off promptly. Death slowly lifted himself off the floor, surveying the Wolverine's form, enough to now direct his power towards the other mutant. Logan growled, his fists clenched. The sedative was enough to keep two elephants in deep coma: it revealed how strong his healing ability was. His eyelids swooped progressively closed, the strained muscles of his neck relaxing. Death's tone became much more sombre. "I am going to take you to Sinister, Weapon X. He was gained interest in you, that it be interest for your powers, or your relationship with Rogue, I'm not sure."

Logan's forehead was creasing with wrinkles, something that he'd never experienced before. Needless to say, he was feeling a little raise of... panic? "What'cha doing?"

"Weakening your body, Weapon X. Working against you natural mutation, so that I can transport you without fearing for my life... or my clothes," he added, gesturing to his ruined shirt and waistcoat.

"I feel bad now," Logan sneered, trying to fight the druggy state that falling over him. He couldn't let the psycho kidnap him, the Wolverine. He felt unusually helpless, trapped, without control on the outside world. He couldn't let this happen, couldn't- for Rogue. One thing for sure, boy the poison was effective. "Bastard," he added, but it was only a faint whisper. What was he now, bate, guinea pig, experiment? It made his blood run cold, made him what to struggle harder, made the animal inside frantic.

Death nearly leap back out of sheer astonishment when Logan suddenly emitted the most animalistic cry a man had ever uttered, trashing, against his power, against the medicament.

"No! Impossible!" Death shouted, pushing harder, beating Logan's mutant power with stronger resolve. His smooth features turning lumpy with the effort. He rushed to his gun, charged another shot of tranquilliser and aimed for the jugular while Logan was now pushing himself up, his eyes wild with rage, ready to pounce and shred his attacker.

Death didn't hesitate another second. He squeezed the trigger. Logan fell, eyes rolling back into unconsciousness.

For a moment, Death thought to himself, he'd nearly lost his cool. _How undistinguished of myself_. On cue, Bradson appeared, jumping over the fallen door and into the room, bottle of bear swinging in one of his hands. He wordlessly gave the pale mutant another of his drawings.

Death sneered. "You could have warned me that one shot wouldn't have been enough," he accused, throwing the paper aside, and putting away the gun in his case, switching off the music as he did. Eerie silence filled the room.

"The ultra sounds did the trick anyway," he explained, glancing at the lying Logan. "Sensitive hearing isn't always a gift. Now, my dear Weapon X, it's time for your appointment with the doctor."

°°°°°

Sophia groped for her glasses at the side of her bed. "Coming!" she repeated as the knock persisted at the front door. As soon the world became neat again, her square black glasses on her nose, she grabbed her night-gown, put her large slippers on and headed downstairs. "I'm coming!"

She peeped through the door, and recognising the late intruder, unlocked the door and let him. There was a rush of cold air and snowflakes before she had the door firmly shut again.

"I need my beauty sleep sometimes if I want to be gorgeous and shining tomorrow morning..."

"Please, Sophia, dis be urgent," Gambit pleaded. Sophia eyed him warily in the dimness of the sitting room; it wasn't Gambit's kind to plead. His eyes, red lights in the dark made her uneasy.

"What is it?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I want ya to analyse dis," he said handing her a small vial. He hardly ever used the pronoun 'I' either. Something was up. She switched the small side lamp and inspected it. It was dark with blood.

"Who's blood is it?" she asked, glancing back at Gambit. The small white sticker on the side indicated O, Rogue's name, and a two days' worth date.

"S'not yar business..."

"Not my business?" Sophia snapped, giving him a glare. "You barge in at two in the morning, looking like a..." she let her eyes run over his form. "like a tramp, a burglar..."

Remy's nerves were about to brake. "Sophia, how many times gambit hav'ta tell ya," he said, exasperated. "Remy's a thief, not a burglar."

"It sounds the same to me."

"Well it ain't." This was going no where. "Sophia, please. Remy want ya to check for infections, anything..."

She stayed silent, but then headed for the kitchen. Remy followed her, close behind. She pressed the side of her dinning cupboard, the wood sliding away to reveal a panel of flashing buttons and switches. Soon, a passage gave way in the blue wall, and she quickly jumped the steps that led down, taking them down two by two familiar with the place. Bright lights were flicked on, revealing a small room, stuffed with vials and microscopes, cages full of mice and rats.

"Sit", she told him, doing so herself while she gestured to somewhere with her hand, not realising that, in fact, there was nowhere to do so. Gambit slowly paced the small lab, eyeing the rodents, while Sophia was busying herself with the blood sample. He flexed his injured arm painfully, she took note of the blood staining the arm of his coat.

"What happened to you, Remy."

"A _cabot_ took Remy's arm for steak."

Sophia flexed an eyebrow. "I'm far from being fluent in French."

"A _chien_, a dog. Got bitten," he explained.

With the help of a pipette, she filled three smaller vials with the blood, before popping them in the ... "Show me?" she asked, already grabbing antiseptic spray from a shelf.

"No time for dat. Just get on with de business."

"I have to leave it in there for a couple of minutes anyway. Just take your coat off and show me. You're under my roof, and I can't let you stay like this. It's my job to heal," she said. "I vowed so under Hypocrathis law."

"Thought dat was 'bout not divulging any personal information 'bout the patients." Remy accepted, though, shedding his coat, and pulling up the bloodied sleep, revealing a makeshift bandage.

"That is not a proper bandage," she criticised harshly, pulling it off with surpassingly gentleness. "Oh dear, look. The skin is swollen and irritated." She slipped on a glove and pressed Gambit's forearm. "And hard. Congratulations, you've got an infection, Mister. Have to stop it from becoming feted."

"I've had worse, Chère," Gambit protested, trying to get his arm out of Sophia's grip.

"Don't be a fool. It won't take long- have you been vaccinated against rabies?" She had to make sure, as it was a dog that had bitten him.

"Remy thinks so."

"When was the last time?"

Remy rolled his eyes. Would she ever stop? Sophia might be kind hearted, but as soon as she was in her element (her lab and medical science in this case) she became the most bossy, authoritarian woman. "Can't remember,' he confessed. He had to repress a hiss as she disinfected the wounds. As soon she'd finished dressing it properly, with brand new, sterile bandages, she fished out a glass of water, and two tablets and held them out to Remy.

"Drink," she said simply. "They're antibiotics. You need the swelling to go down immediately. Wait another two days, and I would be thinking about amputating that arm. Another hour outside, and you would have been hit with fever."

Remy took them. She watched intently as he placed the two white tablets in his mouth, and then took a gulp of water to make them go down. Gambit was never an easy patient. "Good, now go and rest on the couch. There's a blanket already there." He was about to protest, but she beat him to it. "It'll take another three hours before I get any information out of the samples. And you look shattered. Immunity system will be running slow. And you don't need that right now."

True, Gambit felt the heavy weight of sleep pushing against his senses. He could trust Sophia, that much he knew, and he needed his strength. Sophia still had her eyes intent on Gambit's face, as she noticed, even with the dark circles incrusted around his eyes, that he still looked incredibly handsome, his hair dishevelled, a several days' subtle roughening his skin. If she didn't have a fiancé, she might have been more willing to join him on the couch.

He wearily trod back to the main floor, not before turning around and voicing his thanks with a small, tired smile.

Sophia turned away and went to work.

Meanwhile, Remy rested his head down on the couch's arm, his eyes dwelling on the piles of magazines and newspapers on the small table. He'd taken off his coat and left it at his side, instead covering himself with a blanket. If he hadn't had anything else on his mind, he would have seen this like a moment of _tranquillité_. Tranquillity. Where all he dreaded was waking up too early instead of sleeping till eleven. Those days seemed now so far away, as if they were part of another life.

All he could see now, as he closed his eyes, everything he dreamed of, dreaded of, concerned Rogue. How had it come to this? He'd already asked himself several times. How could he really justify his love?

It did not need justifying. It did not need reason. Wasn't a man allowed to love, without having to explain himself every step of the way? Wasn't a man allowed to give love freely? It was simple, why should it be complicated?

Sleep came with difficulty, his mind lingering on Sophia as she busied herself in her lab with Rogue's blood sample, _thieved_ (not robbed) from the med-lab. He still thought about Death whispering these words of fear.

_Doesn't she seem unusually distant… let's say… different?_

_I must say… I, first, then Sinister were rather surprised the way things turned out. Rogue wasn't meant to live that long._

_You see… it was all an experiment, and it's soon coming to an end._

Gambit felt confident that he would soon find out what exactly this meant. _It was soon coming to an end_. It was this, more than anything else, that helped him ease down onto the couch, and go to sleep.

* * *

Voilà! 

Rogueless chapter, but she lingers in our favourite mutants' minds! I'm hoping I'll finish Concrete road before the end of the holidays, so look out for more updates.

Thanks for the support, **el diablo**, an' **Ice Angel46**

**WolvGambit Le Diable Blanc**Thanks for the compliments. I might be creative, but grammar sometimes doesn't follow, and it's one of the most frustrating things: not being able to put what you think into words.

**AngstWolf,** Glad the entertaining is working, then! Looking forward to your update.

**Spotless mind**, Actually, I wouldn't mind a betta reader. Thanks for the riddle, I'm working on it. ;D

**Sangofanatic**, yeah, my grammar is crap. But I'm updating the chapters slowly to try and correct the mistakes. 'Throw' instead of 'through' is indeed a terrible mistake, one that I'm cured of for life.


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